The Invited Invite | The Right Call S1E7

My mom had a friend my brother called "an includer." Every time she heard about a function my mom was hosting, she'd say, "Oh, I'll bring a cheese ball," and invite herself. The trouble was, she wasn't always invited, and it put a real strain on their friendship.

It sounds small. What if it doesn't stay small?

Absalom was gifted, charismatic, the most handsome man in Israel. His father's court was backlogged and broken, so he stood at the city gate every morning, listened, shook hands and made people feel seen. Then he staged a coup that nearly destroyed the kingdom, because everything was in service of the throne. He wasn't waiting to be invited. He was engineering his own ascent, with language that sounded a lot like servant leadership.

The wrong assumption

Today's culture tells us that if we feel called, we pursue it. Passion is what matters. If our motives are good, stepping into leadership is just good stewardship.

That sounds right. It's exactly backwards for a servant. A servant doesn't deploy himself. Desire does not authorize action. Assignment authorizes action. Taking what isn't offered changes our identity, even when our motives stay pure. We've substituted our judgment for our master's, and we can't unring that bell.

On June 5, 1944, Eisenhower postponed D-Day for weather, and 160,000 troops sat cramped on ships for an extra 24 hours. Not one captain went early. Not one paratrooper commandeered a plane. It seems obvious. Somehow we forget it in our own careers.

Robert Greenleaf's servant leadership model, the one most of us were trained on, teaches a lot that's admirable. It also lets the servant self-authorize the move into leadership, and it shifts the object of service from the one who sent us to the ones we lead. We can serve our followers beautifully and still be out of step with our master's assignment.

The servant's protocol

It shows up all through Scripture.

• Offer. Isaiah: "Here am I, send me." That's availability, not ambition. The hand goes up and stays up.
• Move on the assignment. Nehemiah prayed for months and did his homework. He didn't move until Artaxerxes opened the door.
• Submit to redirection. Paul was blocked from Asia, then Bithynia. The detour gave us Philippi, Lydia and the Philippian church.
• Keep asking. The offer isn't one and done. It's a posture.

General George Marshall wanted to command Overlord, and he was arguably the most qualified man alive for it. When President Roosevelt asked him directly, Marshall wouldn't lobby. He said he'd serve wherever he was assigned. The command went to Eisenhower. Marshall stayed Chief of Staff, transformed the Army, backed Eisenhower, and was later invited to be Secretary of State, where he created the Marshall Plan. A good master rewards a faithful servant.

Where are we facing?

A servant faces one of three directions. Inward: a real hurt became the identity, the hand came down, and we're doing the minimum. Outward: active, producing, serving people, and quietly drifting from "Here am I, send me" to "Here am I, watch me." That's Absalom at the gate. Toward the master: restless in the right direction, doing the work in front of us, even helping the person who got the role we wanted, hand still raised.

If we're "waiting on the Lord," four questions help us tell whether we're waiting on Him or He's waiting on us. What master is served by our waiting? What idol is challenged by taking action? How are we waiting, restless or passive? How are we keeping our hand raised?

A servant who was invited into leadership can do something a self-appointed leader can't. They can invite others. That's the invited invite.

A question to sit with

Look at where we're serving right now, not where we wish we were. Where am I facing? And is my hand still raised? If it is, keep it there. If it's not, put it back up.

This is Episode 7 of The Right Call: Wisdom Simply Applied.