Leaders With a Limp

Image by Nathan Harper

Reading through The Rabbit and the Elephant. Good stuff on leadership this morning. This has application no matter where you work/lead, but especially in the church:

God is looking for leaders who walk with a limp: those who, like Jacob, have fought with God and surrendered to Him unconditionally (Genesis 32:24-32). God wants leaders who have learned from the disappointments and challenges of following Him through good times and bad. For leaders in the New Testament, their only promise was persecution, not professional perks and public praise. Their training came from the desert school of hard knocks, not the seminary of intellectual questioning. They valued the simplicity of Christ and expected to experience the power of the Holy Spirit in their work.

God is looking for those who are dead to their own ambitions. They have crucified any desire for the limelight, nailing to the cross their own agendas and ministries. They have no need to control. They are willing to go unrecognized, to be of no consequence in the world. They are looking for ways to lay down their lives for others.

We love Wolfgang Simson’s description of apostles as “weeping fathers, longing for their sons to overtake them.” There is no room for personal ambition because God does not share His glory. Our humility is the only way His glory will be seen by others. When we learn to boast in our weakness, the power of God is revealed (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Posted 11.06.2009

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