Follow the Leader

On and off for the last year (perhaps longer) I've been a person very easily frustrated by other people's foolishness. I've often witnessed people making bad decisions, or living carelessly, and either said something that had no effect or just bottled up my frustration. Even if the original motives for these things started well, they almost always dragged me into a place where I was acting like as much (or more) of a fool as the other people had been.

But recently something changed. I was reading the Word (the bible) when I came across one of those kinds of verses that I normally liked... one that essentially reaffirmed my desire to correct others. However, this time when I read, I noticed this little bit at the end... it said to lead by example. In that moment I took special care in considering that method. In a heartbeat I had to reexamine where my life was. Was I leading by example or was I only leading by words?

(Answer: mostly words)

Today I thought of it like this:

it's the difference between somebody trying to explain to you all of the reasons that you should play soccer and you seeing a World Cup player who has mastered his game. (if you don't like soccer, replace this example)

Surely in your life you have seen somebody do something with such amazing skill that you just thought, 'man, that looks awesome... I want to do that.' And that, I think, is how I am supposed to live. So if I want to lead others to doing well, I myself must live as well as I can.