Leading Indicators

I am a believer in leading indicators.  Knowing the signs to what might come generates the opportunity to do something about the impending reality.  I know financial ratios, operational indicators, and staff employees are voices crying out to be heard.  If I am foolish enough to ignore them, we all lose!  I also know that there is rarely an automatic link that cannot be broken.  Just because staff members are unhappy, it does not automatically follow that they will leave.  Just because our run rate for spending is ahead of our budget, it does not automatically follow that we will break our budget.  Just because our operational efficiency ratios are less than we anticipated, it does not automatically mean that we will run an inefficient shop.  They are merely leading indicators.  The opportunity, in most cases, exists for action, change, and different outcomes.
 
I wish I could say that I listened to every leading indicator.  If only it were true; I am open to the whispered warnings of what might come from the actions, choices, and decisions of the present.  What would things be like if, if I had been aware to the voices at hand?
 
No voice is more important in my life than the voice of God.  God’s Spirit is here, in your life and mine.  The leading indicators of our lives are letting us know what kind of fruit the present will bear.  There is no threat to God’s observation about how evil plays out in every life;  “the wicked are storm-battered seas that can't quiet down.  The waves stir up garbage and mud.  ‘There's no peace,’ God says, ‘for the wicked.’”  (Isaiah 57.20, 21)  It is merely a statement of leading indicators and the outcome that will most certainly be a reality.
 
Today, with a cool crisp sun coming up into the eastern California sky, I look forward with an ability to choose.  What will it be?  Will I take yesterday’s indicators and release myself into God’s healing and leading?  Will I be a difference to those around me?  Will I?