One essential for being a good walk leader is that you reconnoitre your walk beforehand - not more than a week in advance, and ideally as close as possible to the date.
The walkers will want to know that you have already been round the course and spotted any difficulties that might make the walk hazardous or uncomfortable: lots of mud, slippery ice, fallen branches and so on. The knowledge that you have taken this step builds confidence all round. Walkers know that leaders have trodden the route in advance and are taking them nowhere they would avoid going if doing it on their own.
Of course, hazards can unexpectedly appear. That mound of earth that someone has dumped in the middle of the path wasn’t there the other day. In such cases the leader is looked to to make responsible decisions about alternative routes so as not to put anyone at risk. In most cases this is not necessary. The potential hazards have been viewed and addressed in advance and the risk controlled.
In the armed forces, where danger is unavoidable, good leadership is vital. The most loved and respected officers have generally been those who prove themselves able to do what they expect the troops under them to do.
Admiral Lord Nelson was popular on board ship because he
“... understood the realities of combat, and he understood that when leaders set the example, their subordinates are more likely to rise to the challenge. Nelson’s sailors loved him, because he shared the dangers alongside them”.
Anyone who has been on board HMS Victory and spotted the plaque which marks where Nelson was fatally shot will know this truth. Danger is unavoidable in naval combat, of course, and Nelson was targeted in the most exposed of spots where he expected his men to be.
For precisely this reason, it does high credit to Jesus to say that
“… we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15, NIV 1984).
In His thirty or so years on earth, there was no facet of human experience that Jesus did not go through in some way or another.
An old hymn includes this verse which sums it up neatly:
Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than He went through before;
He that into God’s kingdom comes
Must enter by this door.
Richard Baxter, 1615-1691
Every time a believer is baptised, the same truth is remembered in dramatic fashion as the person goes down into the water and then emerges again.
“Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new [resurrection] life” (Romans 6:3-4).
The Lord Jesus Christ may not have gone through every detail of our experience. Yet in our bitterest and most forsaken moments He can still remind us with true conviction, “I understand; I’ve been there”.
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