A Wake of Grace: Thoughts on Life and Leadership

By Beth Taylor

Leadership is both a journey forward and a legacy we leave behind. Every gentle curve and jagged edge along the pathway serves to illuminate His great grace towards us. In these pages, we are invited to become who Jesus designed us to be and encourage others to do the same.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312085008

Book preview

Title Page

A Wake of Grace

Essays on Life and Leadership

Beth Brawley Taylor

Taylor Ministry Group

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www.taylorministry.com

Copyright page

© 2023 by Elizabeth Brawley Taylor. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New King James Version (NKJV), © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.™. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-312-08500-8

Published by:

TMG Publishing

P.O. Box 691

Waycross, GA 31502

www.taylorministry.com

Dedication

Deuteronomy 13:4 (NLT) Serve only the Lord your God and fear Him alone. Obey His commands, listen to His voice, and cling to Him.

This book is dedicated to all my children…my three outstanding sons: Jacob, David and Jonathan, and their beautiful wives, Kayla and Marianna. No matter what I may accomplish in my days on earth, bringing up you three men is my finest accomplishment. And you three women are the most beautiful answer to many years of countless prayers uttered over your husbands. I pray each of you will choose to cling to Him over all else in this life, giving Him everything that you are that you might know the infinite depths of Him.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright page

Dedication

Introduction

Thoughts on Leadership

A Wake of Grace

Exit Interview

How Can I, Lord?

A Simple Truth

The Seeing

What Is Wrong with The Church:

A Question We Should Ask God

More Thoughts on Grace

Faith, Abandonment and Other Easy Things

Beautiful Desolation

Are You for Real?

Abundance or Scarcity...Which Do You See?

Waiting for God

The Extravagance of Compassion

Branches and Roots

You Show Me Yours...I'll Show You Mine

Mentoring: The Twos of Timothy

The Learning Leader

Chips and Axes: Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chips and Axes: Are You in Possession?

How Do You Measure?

Upside-Down of Leadership

A Leadership Lesson from a Chef

So This Is His Grace...

Get Out and Read a Few Tombstones!

Goodnight House and Goodnight Mouse

He Decides for Me

Jesus and .38 Special

Out of the Hothouse

The Impossible

Leaving a Legacy

Wanting, Needing, Longing...

React or Respond

Beholding and Becoming

Don't Die with This!

Chasing Your Tail

Books, Beautiful Books

Restaurants and Churches

Numbers

Truth-Tellers

Get Paid for Your Passion

The Beauty of Margins

Good to Great-Gretzky Style

Risky Business

The Adventure Continues...

The Beauty of the Process

Counting the Cost

If You Will Let Him

The Way of Brokenness

A Fine Line

Transition

Simplicity

The Elevation of Others

Contagious Generosity

The Way He Has Chosen

Know the Hope

Thoughts on Women Leading

A Unicorn in A Balloon Factory

Head...Small Word, Big Misunderstanding

Are There Women in Your Posse??

Fearless Heretics

Thoughts on Family

Nights of the Round Table

Are You a Family on Purpose?

My Caped Crusader Grew Up!

Savor Every Moment

A Song, Some Memories and a Thankful Heart

Loss

Thoughts on Creativity

Soul Speak

Dreams

What's Wrong with the Old Songs?

Making Room for Creativity: Prioritize

Making Room for Creativity: Inventory

Making Room for Creativity: Trim the Fat

Making Room for Creativity: Explore the Space

For Those Who Dare to Dream...

Thoughts on Solitude

The Glory of Being Alone

You Have the Right to Remain Silent...

Desert Places

In The Stillness

Come Aside...

The Depths of Abiding

Will Somebody Please Turn Down the Noise?!

You’re Soaking in It!

Social Media: How Much Is Too Much?

Lend Me Your Ear

Learning to Wait

Thoughts on Intimacy

Audacious Intimacy

Never Too Late

In His Lap

Soulmaking

Monday's Ambition

Where Is God?

Rooted in Knowing

Hungry for Him

When We Move

One Thing

Thank You, God

Have You Ever Wondered?

The Skin of Knowing

Why Do You Obey God?

Where Heaven and Earth Meet

Appendices

About Beth Taylor

Other TMG resources

About Taylor Ministry Group

Introduction

The Greek statesman, Pericles, is credited with saying, What you leave behind is not what is engraved on stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. I believe this with my whole heart. Like a sea vessel on the water, we leave a wake behind as we move through this life, effecting countless lives with the choices me make, the words we speak and the very life we live.

The scriptures have much to say about the wake we leave behind. Psalms 78: 4,6-7 (NLT) says, We will not hide these truths from our children, we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord, about His power and His mighty wonders. So the next generation might know them-even the children not yet born-and they in turn will teach their own children. So each generation should set its hope anew on God, not forgetting His glorious miracles and obeying His commands.

As we lead ourselves, our families and the people over whom we have been afforded influence, we get to choose what we leave behind with the hope that the mark we make will cause them to set their hope on Him. Leadership, at its core, is pure influence, and we have a unique opportunity to create hunger in those we lead…a hunger to love Him, cling to Him and live lives of abandonment to Him. How will you move through the waters of your allotted time on earth? What will you do with your influence? And how can you chart a course that casts all eyes on Him rather than on yourself? These are questions we must answer.

Thoughts on Leadership

A Wake of Grace

Ephesians 4:29 Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Do the words that you often speak extend grace to those around you?

Do the people that live with you find themselves set free by the grace your words bring or are they constantly imprisoned by the chains of negativity and unmet expectations that flow freely from your mouth?

Are you even aware of the steady flow from your lips and what your words mean in the life of those around you?

These are questions I am asking myself these days.

I deeply desire my words to leave a wake of life, hope and grace that can bring beauty and freedom to the people that surround me.

Our words should lift people up on the wake they leave behind and move them to a higher place rather than causing them to capsize.

Have you checked the wake of your words lately?

Exit Interview

Wouldn't it be interesting if you could have an exit interview with everyone you have encountered this past week? What would they say about their interaction with you?  Were your words dazzling?  Were your arguments convincing?  Did you make your point with dizzying clarity? 

I would assert that what we say isn’t the only thing that matters.  It is also how we make people feel that carries weight.  Maya Angelou said, I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.  That might sound a little touchy-feely, but I find that in most of my dealings with people, it is what they walk away with that matters most to them.  Kind of like the aftertaste when you have something to eat or drink….as far as appetite goes, it doesn’t really matter what you swallowed, your stomach doesn’t know the difference.  But your mouth will register the aftertaste for quite some time and it is that by which you judge the value of the meal or the beverage.  We leave a mark on each one we touch, a fingerprint on their soul.  What does it look like?  What will others see in our wake?

There are certainly days when my wake could have been better.  I would like to say that my fingerprints are always lovely, but some of them are not.  This is when we thank God for a fresh start, a clean slate. Tomorrow is a new day, and we can purpose to think before we speak, listen much, and leave behind something remarkable on others, something that causes them to cast their eyes on Him.

How Can I, Lord?

There are times that the Lord requires something of you that you just aren't sure you can do, something that hurts you deeply even though you know that it is what must be done. I have had many times where I found myself at such a place and that is when I ask the Lord to please give me courage when what I really want is a plane ticket to a nice sunny island somewhere far from this road of heavy responsibility on which I have, at times, found myself. Deep in my heart I only want to follow my Father who loves me unlike anything I have ever known and yet there are times that I question Him, and I make no apologies for it. It is okay to question Him, tell Him you are hurt with Him and wrestle with Him just as Jacob did. When we wrestle with Him, He is touching us and this is a good thing, and maybe, just maybe, we will come away marked by the Lord of the universe, never to walk the same again. Sometimes He must change our gait in order to change our hearts.

William Booth once said, the greatness of a man's power is in the measure if his surrender. To this I respond by waving my white flag that I keep in my pocket for days that are difficult. I am His daughter, and I am compelled to give in to His leading, but even so, there are times I don't like it and I don't hesitate to tell Him. I have been criticized for this and told it is irreverent, but I don't believe that is true. Scripture gives many examples of those God called His friends that related to Him in this, a way that is often misread as audacity but is, in fact, naked authenticity. I don't want to talk to Him like others think I should--I want to talk to Him like I have been since I was a little girl and had no one to turn to but Him...my Father, my Faithful Friend. He knows me, truly and deeply, and what I have with Him is real and bare and honest.

So every time I find myself in the middle of another hard place I must ask, How can I, Lord? And He will say what He has always said, With the help of your best Friend.

Here we go....

A Simple Truth

Occasionally I