Sen Stevens was found guilty but vows to remain a candidate for reelection. Just in case you don’t know it, those in public office “need” to be in office. It’s not about the mission. It’s about the place.
There comes a time when a leader needs to move on so the people can move on. Like John the Baptist, who understood the difference between being called and being driven, as Gordon MacDonald describes it. John’s words were, “he must increase and I must decrease.” John didn’t want to make his disciples have to choose between himself and Jesus.
I often wonder how pastors apply that truth. I don’t think I have ever seen a pastor at the top of his game voluntarily remove himself because he was getting in the way of Jesus being Jesus, not because he had a secret sin revealed but simply because he occupied too big of a place. Thomas Aquinas did this. At the top of his influence he put down his pen and never wrote another book – not because he was tired of the work, the struggle, the frustration. He just became convinced that he had done what he was appointed to do. Henry Nouwen did this. At the top of his game he left his position of influence and signed on to serve disabled adults – giving baths, cleaning bedpans, and the thousand other things you have to do for those who cannot care for themselves. Could he have done “more good” if he had not done this? Maybe, as we count good. But he found out that following Jesus was more than guarding your gains.
The reality is that people can get really big and God really small. So God can lead perfectly healthy and useful men whose eyes have not dimmed and whose vigor has not abated up to the mount where God conducts a private burial service. And then God said to the people, “Moses my servant is dead.” They renewed covenant with God and move on to the promised land. And that is what it was always about in the first place.
