Lessons on Leadership from the Little Things in Life: I Don’t Understand!
Life is full of examples that teach us lessons. That’s why stories and illustrations make learning so much more effective. When a story can be used to illustrate or demonstrate a valuable lesson, the story makes it much more understandable, relatable, and memorable. With that in mind, I want to take some time to do just that – share examples of circumstances and stories experienced in everyday life which illustrate leadership lessons that we can learn and apply. This is one of those examples, and it teaches us about trusting God in our circumstances, even when we don’t understand.
One of the things that my wife and I have enjoyed doing together over the years of our marriage has been watching TV series. What kind of series that is will change, depending on the season or what is catching our interest, but we enjoy watching them together. For example, my wife has long been a Trekkie, so at one point in time, we watched through the entire original Star Trek television series, and then all of the Star Trek movies. Sometimes we enjoy watching animé, so Naruto was another show that we watched all the way through. And of course, there were all the Marvel movies in chronological order, and the Star Trek movies and series, including the animated ones, also in chronological order. More recently, we really enjoyed watching a Korean drama called “When Life Gives You Tangerines,” and thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it. Currently, we are watching the Waltons series. I know it’s an older series, but we also enjoy watching through television series from that era, like The Andy Griffith Show or Hogan’s Heroes. A brief scene in the Waltons reminded me of the important lesson I am sharing today.
In the final episode of season 1, Mrs. Walton (Olivia) was stricken with polio. As the family wrestled with her illness and with the potentially crippling effects, the pastor of their church showed up to visit. On the porch, as he was leaving, he asked Grandma Walton how the children were doing, and she said that they were having a hard time understanding how this could happen to their mother. The reverend replied, “Me too.” Grandma said, “You, a man of God?”, to which he answered, “I accept His ways, ma’am, but I don’t always understand them.”
This made me think about the challenges my wife has had over the years with cancer and its related effects. Her health had been deteriorating over many years, with changing diagnoses from different doctors over that time. But then a new doctor was convinced that something else was the source of much of the issue and began pursuing answers until it was discovered that my wife had neuroendocrine cancer, with a primary tumor in her left lung. The result was a thoracotomy to remove her lung and to start treatments for the effects of that cancer. During that experience, especially early on, we had to wrestle with the same truth that the reverend did on the Waltons. We had to decide if we were gonna trust what God was doing even when we didn’t understand.
In retrospect, I can see that God has blessed and used us through that experience for a purpose. We have seen His hand at work using this to minister to others, and He has blessed us abundantly, even in the worst of it. So, even when we didn’t understand, it was the right thing for us to trust Him because He still knew what He was doing. It’s the same as when a parent gives a child boundaries for their good, even when their children don’t understand why at the time.
And that’s the lesson on leadership from this little thing in life, from this brief scene in the final episode of season 1 of the Waltons. As Steven Curtis Chapman sang, “God is God and I am not.” It is like looking at a woven rug from the backside, where all you see is the tangled mess of carpet fibers, while God is on the other side and sees the completed beautiful picture. I don’t see the whole picture from my perspective, so the only question I have to answer is whether or not I trust what God is doing, even when I don’t see the purpose. I don’t know what challenges you may be experiencing at the moment, but I hope that your relationship with God is such that you can trust His ways even when you don’t understand.
