LEADERSHIP Series: Get and Don’t Forget

Proverbs admonishes us to “get Wisdom.”

For business leaders, business school knowledge is important, sometimes even vital for structuring your business thinking. Don’t dismiss it as irrelevant; however what Proverbs drives us to “get and hold on to” has eternal impact – and that is what Christian business people are called to generate – eternal impact.

We must form the habits of “get[ing]” and “holding on to” and “not forget[ing]” and “guarding … well” Wisdom’s instruction. These habits will help us assimilate or accommodate any instruction we receive. Shaping all our learning through the filter of Scripture takes intentionality and effort, especially in a culture that forges a false dichotomy between secular and scared.

Think of brain having boxes defined by rows and columns (like in Excel®) – similar to Piaget’s internal model of your world. New instruction that fits the junction at a row and column is easily assimilated. If the new information does not fit, it must be accommodated. Your habit-pattern of thinking can drive that accommodation. That’s why meditation on God’s Word must become a habit. It will shape everything we might learn – especially about leadership. It drives our integration of the scared and the secular.

Obedience to “meditate day and night” on God’s works, God’s wonders and God’s Word drives in us a joy that is attractive to those watching. That’s one way leader’s gains followers.

Meditation Yields Motivation. Is your obedience bringing about a motivating and attractive joy?

Proverbs 4:5, 13 (NIV) Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or swerve from them…Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.

Copyright © by P. Griffith Lindell