charting the way

We have eight walls that hold thousands of current charts at the doctor's office where I work. They are filed alphabetically by the first two letters of the last name. Example: all the last names...Albritton, Alexander, Allen, etc..... have A and L stickers on the edge of their charts. Albritton would be first, then Alexander, then Allen. Okay, you get that....sounds simple, right? Well, sometimes people forget their alphabet (ha! ha!) and that's when the trouble starts! It only takes one chart misfiled to make a mess of things. Yesterday, I found a handful of Simmons mixed in with the Simons. Once the first chart is misplaced, others tend to follow.
One of our sons always had younger boys following him. They wanted to be where he was and to do what he was doing. He was kind and included them, so he was their friend and they looked up to him. I remember telling him how important it was for him to be a good example, "If those boys are going to follow you, you need to be sure you are leading them in the right direction." I knew that if he made a bad choice, they would be right behind him, making it, too. And they would all end up in the wrong place. It was a lot of responsibility for a young boy, but if God was going to use him to be leader, he needed to learn how important it was to be a good one.
The truth is.... we are all leaders. By the life we live, we are either leading others to God or away from Him. So, are our words and actions "filed"correctly...are they in order with God's character? Are our affections in their proper place or have they been "misplaced"? My desire is to be in my rightful place, so that those who come behind me will be in theirs!