As a result of the burden to produce leaders, I began to ask the question: “When you find a leader, a person on the stage; what brought him there since he was not born a leader, and was not born on the stage? What happened during the hidden years, when he was not known?” When you see a big tree, a tree that can stand the storms of time, there is something underlying its strength. What is underneath? What distinguishes a tree that will stand all sorts of storms from the tree that will not? The answer lies in,
- The type of roots and
- The depth of the roots.
Every tree has roots but on the first sweep of the wind some trees are already on the ground. Others, if the wind persists, will fall later on. For others still, even if tornados come from all sides, they will stand. What type of roots do they have? How deep are they?
The Case of John The Baptist
John the Baptist’s mission was, And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins (Luke 1:76–77).The father of John the Baptist received John’s mission and he knew how to prepare him to accomplish this mission. John did not need scholarship. He needed only one thing: growth in the spirit.
John is the only one in Scripture about whom it is said that he grew and became strong in spirit. And the child grew and become strong in spirit; and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel (Luke 1:80). Since he had a spirit trained to attain the fullest heights, and the spirit is made up of the conscience, intuition and communion; it also means that he had,
- A fully grown conscience (the window that opens to God).
- A fully grown intuition (the capacity to receive revelations from God unaided by the mind) and
- A fully grown communion (the capacity to flow in total fullness after God).He entered the school of developing the spirit. These are the only three things that John developed.
His parents saw that he needed a developed spirit in order to be the prophet of the Most High and in order to go before the Lord to prepare the way for Him. They did not ask what the others will think about his education. in any case, he was not competing with others.
John’s school was in the desert, where God was his only environment. He stayed there until he was revealed to Israel. Children should be helped to develop what they will need tomorrow and be helped in the development of that alone. All else is a distraction. John’s parents made sure that he was not distracted. The question is, “What school have you enrolled your children in?”
The Development of The Human Spirit
There is a tragic lack among the saints in the development of the human spirit. They have the spirit of babies but the minds of elephant. Some do not even know what intuition, communion and conscience are. They do not know the most determinant parts of man. Everything has to do with the school of man, for the development of the mind. Their spirits are underdeveloped. They do not know the spirit—the way of the spirit and the life of the spirit. When you are weighing a man for leadership do you ask,
- How developed is his spirit?
- What is the condition of his conscience?
- How sensitive is his conscience?
- What is the condition of his intuition?
- How much education does his intuition know?
- How mature is his communion? “Is that what you ask about a man? Are those the things that determine the decisions you make? Or, do you ask whether he has a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree or a doctorate degree?
When you choose the person your children should be closely related to, do you go in for those who will help the spirit to grow or for those who will help the child to put on worldly tastes and values? What is the difference between your choices and the choices of the worldly? Are your tastes converted when it comes to clothing, cars and housing? Whether or not these are converted is spiritually determinant.
Excerpt from: The Leader and His God – Z.T. Fomum