Taking Your Next Step
Joshua was called to a task and a mission that was beyond his capabilities and experience. But God called him and commanded him to be courageous. What is courage and why is it so vital to leadership? One writer says this: “When we turn our hearts toward God, all of our fears are consumed by one fear. We are called to fear only God. There is an important reason for this. What we fear is what we’re subject to; our fears define our master. What you fear has mastery over your life. Your faith doesn’t make life easier, your faith makes you stronger. The world doesn’t need more great leaders, it needs more great people who lead.” Joshua and the men and women (Hebrews 11) who have gone before us stepped into the moments that God invited them into amidst uncertainty and full of courage that God would accomplish His purposes and His desires through them as they fixed their eyes upon what is unseen vs what is seen.
Leaders serve as a non-anxious presence... The real problem of leadership is a failure of nerve. Leaders fail not because they lack information, skill, or technique, but because they lack the nerve and presence to stand firm in the midst of other people’s emotional anxiety and reactivity... a leader’s job is to be “the strength in the system.”
Leadership is a journey from one challenge to the next one. How can you be the calm amidst the storms that will arise in your spheres of influence?
“If you wait for guarantees, the only thing that will be guaranteed is that you will miss endless divine opportunities…We all want miracles and then spend our lives avoiding the context in which miracles happen.” - Erwin McManus
Leadership is less about our position and more about our commitment to Persevere when we feel we don’t have enough ‘power’, when it requires us to step out of our comfort zone, and when it may cost us.
Great leaders spend less time waiting for the right position and do the kinds of things for the sake and for the good of others.
Joshua was called to a task and a mission that was beyond his capabilities and experience. But God called him and commanded him to be courageous. What is courage and why is it so vital to leadership? One writer says this: “When we turn our hearts toward God, all of our fears are consumed by one fear. We are called to fear only God. There is an important reason for this. What we fear is what we’re subject to; our fears define our master. What you fear has mastery over your life. Your faith doesn’t make life easier, your faith makes you stronger. The world doesn’t need more great leaders, it needs more great people who lead.” Joshua and the men and women (Hebrews 11) who have gone before us stepped into the moments that God invited them into amidst uncertainty and full of courage that God would accomplish His purposes and His desires through them as they fixed their eyes upon what is unseen vs what is seen.
Leadership isn’t about always getting what you want... Leadership is about leveraging our lives for the good of others. Leadership is sacrificing our lives for the sake of others.
Leadership is servanthood. Leadership is about 10,000 obscure, unseen, and un-noticed moments for the sake of the people who have been entrusted to lead.
One writer says this: “You can’t say two different things at the same time and expect to be trusted. A person of integrity cannot say one thing and do another. Integrity is the context from which leaders worth following are formed. Integrity, like wholeness, is a byproduct of our spiritual integration. ‘Integrity’ comes from the root word ‘integer,’ which means to be complete, indivisible – in other words, to be whole.”
A lie we often believe is that all we need to be a good leader is to have power, position, and the ability to move the company, organization, or team towards “success”.
The truth is that God is looking for people who will not simply fixate on results, but lead from a place of consistency, honesty, vulnerability, and whole-life discipleship to Jesus