The Knowing and the Doing, Pt. III
The tension between knowing and doing is very real. Let me start this post by pointing out that God made us whole people. There is no way to separate our intellect from our emotions from our physical capabilities from our spiritual selves. We cannot put knowing and doing into some kind of false dichotomy. In fact, the word for knowing in the New Testament of the Bible refers to knowledge gained through experience–knowledge tried on the forge of day-to-day life.
This should encourage us, but it should also terrify us. In a society that places such high value on education and learning, there is precious little value placed on the doing.
James reminds us that “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.“ Knowing how to lead is not leading. Having a vision is not necessarily visionary. What we do becomes the anvil on which we make that which must be made. It involves hard work, and at the same time, a delicate, sensitive touch: One does not forge a wrought spoon in the same way that one forges a garden spade.
Years ago, I used to play pool. We had one friend who we called “The King of Slop.” He played every game hard, and his rule was hit every ball as hard as possible, in hopes that momentum carries something into one of the pockets. He even broke the lamp over the table once. And he won a few games. His problem, though, was that when the pressure was on, he didn’t have the subtlety or finesse to bring a game to an elegant close. He failed to see the difference in the game when there were only three balls on the table, rather than a full rack. As a result, we beat him. A lot. And when he wondered why, we feigned ignorance (hey, we were young and not very gracious).
Leadership must be done with both power and grace. You need to develop leaderly savoir faire, so that you know what to do. Equally important, though, leadership must be done. And if you know that you ought to be leading (or how you ought to be leading), and you fail to do it…well, that’s a sin.