Me: Howdy, Prodigal!
Prodigal: Howdy, how are you today?
Me: Good, just doing some extra reading.
Prodigal: Would you like to share?
Me: Sure
This comes from the book Start Where You Are by Chuck Swindoll
Far too many today live in a dream world when it comes to preparation for leadership. There is this popular yet mistaken notion that leaders somehow emerge on the scene having been dropped from a lacy cloud—white, ideal and spotless–like a living Mr. Clean, “untouched by human hands.” Perhaps that is the reason God led Paul to go back to those painful days when many would have said, “Now, that was in vain.”
But it wasn’t.
What a perfect place to begin when building a biblical model of leadership…the pain of mistreatment, the humiliation and loneliness of being imprisoned.
Some (dare I say most?) of God’s choicest leaders have emerged from wombs of woe. The Ghetto. A prison. Shame or sickness. A broken home. Mistreatment and fear. But resiliently and triumphantly they came through. From a stormy and tumultuous world of outward opposition or personal insecurity or emotional breakdown or financial failure or physical affliction, they stand today as living trophies of grace.
My point? Disabilities need not disqualify. On the contrary, struggling makes a great background for leadership! Not unless you have struggled with the hopelessness and brokenness of life’s pains can you possibly know how to lead others through such valleys. Since the prime function of the leader is to keep hope alive,its absence helps the leader never to forget its value. Yesterday’s pain prompts today’s praise.
What is your idea of a leader? Would you vote for the perfect one that has no flaws or would you want the leader who could really understand your brokenness. The one with compassion. The one who knows about suffering?
The one who knows that the only leader that will ever be perfect is Jesus.
I will take the broken leader any day of the week. I want compassion and not condemnation.
2 Timothy 3:5
Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
