Turn the mirror on to yourself

We all use the mirror a lot. Everyday before we leave for work, we look at ourselves in the mirror. We want to make sure our faces look good in the eyes of others. That suit or skirt that I am wearing must sit well on me. If there is anything unsightly, it must be removed so that I can face the world with confidence.

There is another mirror that we often forget about:  the spiritual mirror. Christian leadership begins with self-leadership.

It is not right to think about leading others before you think about leading yourself, because Christian leadership is as much  about who you are as it is about how you lead others.

And by the way, it is not only priests, bishops or cardinals who are Christian leaders: if you are a baptised Christian, a parent, a catechist, a teacher, an older sibling and so on, you should consider yourself to be a leader, because any disciple of Jesus is also an apostle and an apostle is a spokesperson and a spokesperson is a leader.

As a Christian and a leader, turn that mirror on to your inner self and see whether you are conducting yourself as a Christian leader should. Using the spiritual mirror, you should be able to ask yourself a number of key questions.

The following are some of the key questions. A “Yes” response to these questions would be an indication that you are indeed conducting yourself as a Christian leader should.

Question 1: This all-important question was dealt with in a previous column: Do you have a sense of mission? Do you realise that the fact that you were born of such parents at such a time and in such circumstances was not a coincidence, but was designed by God to give you the opportunity to make a special contribution to the building of his Kingdom on earth?

Question 2: Have you considered the importance of beginning with the end in sight? In other words, have you reflected on what you would like to have achieved by the time you die?

Put yourself in that final moment and say to yourself: “I’ll be happy if before I come face to face with my Maker I can say that I have done X, Y, Z that He wanted me to do.”

Question 3: Do you put first things first?

I used to convince myself that I was in the habit of putting first things first. By this I meant that I was organised in my workplace and each day I knew the order of priority of my daily commitments.

Then a close associate passed away and I got to know that his will was in order and that he was so organised that he had even written out the details of the Requiem Mass that was going to be said when he passed on.

It was then that I began to realise that what we consider to be the last thing should in fact be the first thing. We should always be ready for the final journey both spiritually and materially.

Question 4: Do you work to serve or to earn money? We all know that money is necessary for life. It is unrealistic to pretend that we can live without money.

However, our priorities are wrong if our whole purpose in doing a job is merely to earn money. Our purpose in life is to serve God and our fellow human beings so that we can help build the Kingdom of God on earth and leave this world a better place than we found it.

Question 5: Who is more important to you in your daily life: God or yourself? If the truth be told, we tend to put ourselves before anything else. Our thoughts are mostly about ourselves.

One of the greatest struggles we must wage in this life is to overcome our ego and learn to make Christ the centre of our lives. Using the spiritual mirror will help us get our priorities right.