I’ve found that many people want to be leaders.  What exactly are they leading, I’m not really sure.  They just want to be leaders.  Well, like many young aspiring leaders, I never put much thought into the actual cost of leadership. I never considered that there might be something I must sacrifice in order to lead.  What I’ve learned over the past few years is that it takes more than a desire to lead, it actually takes sacrifice.

Today I came across a section in the Old Testament that I don’t normally spend much time in…Numbers.  Its got all the details about the Law, ark and all that stuff, which isn’t earth-shaking or very exciting.  Then I started reading in chapter 7.  After Moses had set up the tabernacle, he called the leaders (there’s that word again) of the 12 tribes of Israel together and told them, they had to bring an offering before the Lord.  Here is what each leader had to bring as his requirement:

“His offering he brought was one silver plate weighing a hundred and thirty shekels, and on silver sprinkling bowl weighing seventy shekels, both according to the sanctuary shekel, each filled with fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering; one gold dish weighing ten shekels, filled with incense; one young bull, one ram and one male lamb a year old, for a burnt offering; one male goat for a sin offering, and two oxen, five rams, five male goats and five male lambs a year old, to be sacrificed as a fellowship offering.”

Now, I’m not an Old Testament historian, I don’t all the specific details of living conditions for the nomadic Israelites at the time, but I have to think that every person didn’t have all the gold bowls and animals that they could easily give up. I think they had to sacrifice to make it happen.  It actually costs them something to be a leader. The same is true for those who want to lead today as it was for them back in the desert.

Here are some of the costs that I’ve found:

1. Time-you will have to spend your time differently than others. Get up earlier. Spend less time watching TV. Spend more time reading, studying, learning.
2. Money-you will have to spend money to learn, to gain experience, to get the degree, or to go to the conference.  You have to view your money as being invested and not spent.  Investing your money gives you a return.
3. Relationships-you will have to give up some relationships that do not help you develop as a leader or that drain you of precious time (See cost #1)
4. The present- You have to be willing to give up the present in order to gain in the future. Sowing and reaping at its highest cost. This one is hard for our culture because everyone wants it now.

Yep, everything shut down in the upstate yesterday because of the snow storm.  I love it when you see a yard that has no prints on it, no foot paths and no evidence of a snowball fight.  Its a blanket of pure white.  The problem is with in a few hours you have a bunch of kids that have run all over it, built snowmen, had snowball fights and the ground is muddy and dirty. What was great is now gone.

Just a reminder that somethings in life that we love and are beautiful will not always be around.  Take advantage of them while there here.  Spend quality time with your spouse, take the kids out to dinner, invite the neighbors over, bring that friend you’ve been praying for to church.  Life is full of opportunities.  Take advantage of the ones God has given us.

The words of Paul are awesome in Ephesians, “Be very careful, then, how you live–not anwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity…”