Everywhere I Go: Learning to See JesusSampel

FOLLOWING THE LEADER It takes two things to get something accomplished in this life: leadership - and incentive. My wife and I saw this precept in action on a stay at the Peabody Hotel in Orlando, Florida. One afternoon around 4:00, we observed a red carpet rolled out from the front fountain to the elevator. People were waiting on either side of the carpet - we supposed for a dignitary to arrive. But what arrived at 4:00 p.m. was not a dignitary, but a flock of ducks. And these ducks, accompanied by strains of "The Stars and Stripes Forever," marched right through the lobby, into the elevator, and all the way up to the roof. The crowd applauded wildly. We were amazed. I asked the first employee I saw how these ducks were able to do such a thing. He said, "Well, the environmentalists make sure we don't keep a duck too long, but we put the ones who have already learned the drill at the front, and they're the leaders. The other ducks follow them because they know they're leading them to food. Food's the incentive, you know." There it was: leadership and incentive. No Christian should ever live an ineffective life. We have all we need to make an impact on our world. We have a perfect leader - the Lord Jesus Christ - and a glorious incentive. He has promised to make us by grace what we are not by nature. We can become what He called us to be: fishers of men.