Today is my 59th birthday. I love baseball, so someone gave me two tickets for Nancy and I to go to the Pittsburgh Pirates game this evening to celebrate. We planned to go to the Spaghetti Warehouse for an early dinner, then take in the ballgame afterward. That sounded like a fantastic night to me, but then this morning it got even better–the Pirates announced that because their game with the New York Mets had been rained out last night, they were going to make it up as part of a “true” doubleheader. That meant they would play the first game at 4:05 and the second game would start 30 minutes after the completion of the first. Anyone with a ticket for tonight’s game would be granted admission to BOTH games for the same price. Wow! Talk about a perfect way to celebrate your birthday. I was going to have to readjust a couple of things in my day in order to make it work, and of course we’d be eating ball park hot dogs and popcorn or some other combination of really “awesome” food instead of the Spaghetti Warehouse’s cuisine, but what could be better than watching 18 innings of baseball?
Then I thought: Wait a minute. Nancy doesn’t love baseball to start with, and now I’m going to be taking her away from her work day early in order to watch 18 innings of baseball. While that sounded great to me, I knew it wasn’t going to be anything approaching great to her. First, she would have to reorganize her whole day, and she’s a personality that likes routine and consistency. We were already going to be leaving a little early just to go to the regularly scheduled game. We would also be missing out on having dinner together, since it wouldn’t make sense to go to the Spaghetti Warehouse for dinner at 2:30 in the afternoon. Finally, 18 innings of baseball is a LOT of baseball.
When I thought about it from her perspective I realized that while it IS my birthday, I would be asking a lot of her. So, as a leader at home I decided the best course of action would be our original one: Spaghetti Warehouse late afternoon, Pirate game early evening, and then home. That way we’ll both fulfill our work commitments, we’ll get time together with just the two of us for dinner, and I’ll still get to see 10 or 11 innings of baseball! Jesus told us that the greatest among us are those who serve the most. We hear a great deal about “servant leadership” in the church and in the work place these days. The truth is servant leadership is needed everywhere, and especially in our homes. If I am going to be the best husband I can be for Nancy, thinking of what she needs and wants first is a great way of demonstrating servant leadership.
The Apostle Paul called husbands to love our wives as Jesus loved the church and gave Himself up for her. While foregoing a double header in order to put Nancy’s desires before mine is a small sacrifice, the reality is most of our sacrifices as servant leaders are small. They’re minute compared with what Jesus did for us! But by making consistent small sacrifices for our spouses servant leadership becomes a way of life for us. At the end of the day leadership is a way of life, not a single major event. The more we live as servant leaders in the small opportunities of daily life, the more we equip ourselves to lead across all the arenas of our lives.
Here’s to leading better–today!