RRR_Bearing
47 years ago. November 11th 1978, I received the Gen. Douglas McCarthur award for distinguished leadership from the Bad Toelz NCO Academy, Seventh Army NCO Academy.
It was a high point a real high point, because what they instructed us in was bearing, courage, decisiveness, dependability, endurance, enthusiasm initiative, integrity, judgement, justice, loyalty, knowledge, tact and unselfishness. The characteristics of a leader.
And the shocking thing to me was that the staff sergeant in charge of teaching leadership said that in the opinion of most military greats such as Eisenhower, Patton Marshal, etc., the greatest military leader of all time, was Jesus Christ Because with 12 men, he changed the world forever.
Now That was a little bit shocking to me, because you would expect, great military leaders, Alexander the Great; Hannibal things like that. Marcus Aurelius out of Rome, but no in their opinion, in these real military men; this staff sergeant had seen 3 tours of combat in nam; these were rugged military, fighting men, and in their opinion, the greatest leader was Jesus Christ.
That first characteristic of bearing is a characteristic that you can actually learn and improve upon. Bearing is not just that you are clean in appearance and well-dressed and well-groomed. Bearing is also the attitude that you bring with you that you have. Within you, the control and discipline and power to examplify what it means to be a better person to other people around you.
Bearing comes from within, as well as from without, it is an internal set of decisions in standards and values in paradigms.
Bearing is incredibly important. Now, obviously the list of characteristics is alphabetized, so bearing would be first, but in many instances without bearing how can an individual lead and this is where the questions get deeper. What kind of bearing did our Savior Christ exemplify?
My statement would be perfect bearing. Because when challenged in ways that none of us can even actually fathom, in other words, if you were stood up and it was told to you. If you will say one thing you will live, but if you say another, you will die. And you choose to say the thing that would keep you alive.
We call that sane rational, but last couple of years back; over 1200 people made the choice to maintain their faith and be martyred, and we don't hear about these in the news.
You don't hear about these, but if you go and become a part of a group called the voice of the martyrs, then you will hear these sorts of informations and facts that you don't hear commonly in the marketplace of information.
What is bearing, sometimes bearing means bearing up under the load.
And sometimes; sometimes, bearing isn't pretty, but bearing is absolutely essential, so when you're dealing with your disciples bear in mind that it's important to have great bearing.
Comments