gold in the stream

Once the soup and sorting out the halls was done, there was a steady stream of folk I had to see.

That went on throughout the whole morning. Some arranged in advance, some just happening as they happened.

I never quite know what a day will bring! Except that people are always a part of it. And I need to be pretty flexible in how my time gets used.

Which is fine. I prefer it that way. And I'm happy to leave it all up to the Lord as to how my days get filled.

But it does tend to mean that the things that I'd planned to do in the morning .. well, either they don't get done, or they end up getting squeezed into the edges of the day.

It also meant today that I was a good deal later in meeting Douglas for lunch. Poor guy, he had to wait a while, 'til my morning finally finished way over time. And that meant that time with him was just that little bit shorter and, despite that being the case, he wasn't away until after 3 o'clock.

Which squeezed the afternoon a bit as well! There were people to see again, mainly round the village here, so I was out on foot and enjoying a gorgeous day.

In the midst of it all, though, I chanced on some words from the Annual Review of the RBS.

It's strange what the Lord is able to use to teach us! His guidance and help come from some quite unlikely sources.

I mean, the RBS? A loss of some £28 billion, or thereabouts - and there are things to learn from them?

Well, yes! Here's just a snippet from what the chairman wrote -

"My experience of leading businesses through periods of significant change has taught me that people are resilient and work best when they have certainty over strategic direction, clarity about the role they are being asked to play and feel engaged in pursuing shared objectives."

When I read that it felt like this guy had put in a nutshell exactly what I have been struggling to say.

It was a timely statement as well. We had a meeting of the leaders here tonight when important decisions were made.

We'll be reducing our formal leadership team to a group of fifteen folk. I feel really excited by that. A team of that size is able at last to exercise the sort of vision-casting role we always need.

And one of their first and primary roles is, as the man in the smart grey suit so well suggests, to help to define and then to communicate that 'certainty over strategic direction'.

The guy should have been a preacher in the Church of Scotland, with his well-phrased, 3-point message to us all! He's right on the buttonas well, in terms of defining for us the tasks that good leadership has.

Task number 2 is that of giving 'clarity [to folk] about the role they are being asked to play'.

It felt almost spooky, my reading his words. Like the guy had been sitting in these last long months on all the discussions we've had, and giving a tidy summary of all the major challenges we face.

This one's important, too. Helping people see exactly what it is they're asked, or 'called', to do.

And then task 3 as well. That of helping them 'feel engaged in pursuing shared objectives'.

I have to advise you that I never in a million years ever imagined myself saying what I'm now about to write! But ...

I found myself hugely uplifted in reading the chairman's statement in the Annual Review and Summary Financial Statement of this major financial institution.

Uplifted because it was like listening to a prophetic word of God.

A strange and unfamiliar man (to me at least - I mean, I'm sure he's not a 'strange' man, but you know what I mean), appearing out of the 'blue' of the RBS report and setting out ever so simply the message we've needed to hear.

I've pinned his words on my wall! This is where our leadership is heading in the days ahead. This is what the changes that we're making are all about.

It was like some quiet confirmation from the Lord as he set his seal on the steps we took tonight.