spearhead

In the annals of greatness in the early 19th century is the story of one of the least heralded, most  obscure, most humble, and one of the most responsible characters for the western 2/3 of the United States map.  He was born in 1809 in Kentucky and raised in Boone's Lick, Missouri Territory-a place so far into the American Frontier it was barely known at the time.  It only became known in subsequent history because of its founders, Nathan and Daniel Boone, the sons of a man once humbly obscure in the same way, Daniel Boone.  Daily life in this wilderness settlement was unimaginable to the sensitivities and comforts of our post-modern understanding.  Death by disembowelment, torture, and scalping by natives was not out of the realm of possibility as a way of "leveling up" or exiting the gruelingly laborious frontier lifestyle.  He was 9th of 14 children, a number as arcane as the place he grew up in.  

No one knew of a 14 year-old who became an apprentice to a saddle maker in St. Louis, MO in 1823.  There were no headlines about a short, skinny 17 year-old who joined a wagon train headed for the even less-known town of Taos deep in the wilderness of Mexican Territory. No one could imagine hearing the name of a young man living and sharpening his skills as a trapper and explorer in the nameless wiles of California Territory, who married an Arapaho women, had children, lost children, lost a wife, remarried, moved to a fort in Colorado for a job as provisioner of food, who made several expiditions into hostile native territory in brutal landscapes.  It was during these years, before the Mexican-American War of 1846 that he became good friends with John C. Fremont-later the first territorial governor of California.

The "leadership" and genius of the man known as Kit Carson was not the result of any high-born education, any intesnsive study of leadership and legacy, not any focused ritualistic or spiritual lifestyle.  Kit Carson just wanted to be out in the middle of nowhere.  He wanted to go places no one had ever been.  He wanted to live a quiet life.  He had no designs on fame, no focus on destiny.  He was just an honest, hard-working, open minded, soul living his life, doing his thing.  He had no idea he was in the cross-hairs of destiny while he was learning to tan hides and form them into useable material in St. Louis.  He was oblivious to the grip history had on him as he passed through the trap lines and mountain man rendezvous in the northern Mexican wilderness. The one thing he did have was understanding of a thing called manifest destiny-the preeminant doctrine of American Expansionism.  He may have had a small inkling that was a small drop of water in the lake of the settling of the west.  

But he was not plunging after all that.  His magnificent contribution to the settling of the west came through quiet persistence.  He was no leader of men, but he was a ruthless yet beneficent ruler of himself.  He was the spearhead that opened up places the leaders of men had not yet comprehended as valuable or meritorious, before the leaders of men could see the value of his life and work, and with no promise they ever would.  He was humble and obedient to his superiors in the face of harsh circumstances.  His indomitable courage raised his hand again and again to volunteer for impossible and life-risking tasks that yielded a harvest of destiny.  Kit Carson's picture of leadership is one not heralded today because it is of that straight, narrow, non-glamorous and often brutal path.

There is a little value to some of the "leadership" training of today.  Pastors and Denominations have their favorite figureheads and celebrity speakers who have made it their ambition to be known, who maybe have one or two things about leadership, destiny, fortune, (blah blah blah) worth hearing...  at least once...  maybe.  But rarely have I heard any of these speak of servanthood.  SERVANTHOOD.  Of all the leadership gurus, of all their golden nuggets of wisdom and clever anecdotes that have been preached from pulpits...  people are thirsting to hear the TRUTH of THE WORD: 

1. If you wanna be great in God's kingdom, learn to be the servant of all. 

2. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and mind your own business.

3. Work with your hands in order to be dependent upon no one.

Pretty simple.  Very humble.  Glamourless.  Extremely lack-luster.  This is the leadership Christ exemplified, the Apostles lived and died for, and what the Bible teaches.  Don't look to see if you're being watched.  YOU ARE BEING WATCHED.  Don't pursue fame or riches or vain glory.  Just learn quietly.  QUIETLY.  

                           Q  U  I  E  T  L  Y  !  !  !  

Just do your thang, man.  Make THE MAKER happy.  Whether or not you can handle it, whether or not He sees fit to drop you into the middle of some history-making situation, whether or not your name becomes known in the annals of history, if you can accomplish any one of the three things above, you will have the joy of knowing you are a spearhead of truth in this day.  And as you pursue HIS Manifest Destiny, the legacy of contentment will be as abundant in your life as the possibilities and resources of an untouched wilderness.