The Steadfast Heart

There’s a memory that surfaces in my mind every now and then of a talk I had with my dad as an adolescent. I can’t remember the catalyst for the conversation, but I remember I was complaining. About someone else. I was frustrated that other people, probably at school or youth group, weren’t taking accountability for their actions. I remember feeling alone and I couldn’t understand why I was the only one who had to take responsibility for our shortcomings. Before I could finish my unending list of grievances I held against my peers, my dad vigorously cut me off. “It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter. You’re a leader!”

I didn’t know then that my conversation with my dad would not only change my life but set up the framework for how I viewed leadership as an adult. He went on to explain that because I had leadership gifts, I was held to a different standard than everyone else. It wasn’t about what everyone else did, but what I could control: my attitude and my effort. For years to come I fought off the unfairness of that reality. But I felt what he was saying to my core. I was a leader. And I knew it.

What I came to understand that day was I had a choice about how to use my gifts. I could refuse to take accountability for the part I played with my friends and the trouble we found ourselves in. That heart posture would produce more excuses, more complaining, more comparison and an unteachable spirit. Or I could steward my leadership in a different way, a harder way. But in doing so, I’d build character. As a leader, I held tremendous influence and it mattered what I did with it. It still matters.

Today, I was a kid again, hearing my dad’s voice replay again in my head. “You’re a leader, Natalie!” The last year, especially the last few months have led me into the hardest leadership season of my life. Maybe it’s the industry I’m in or maybe it’s the season of our business. All I know is, I feel the weight of leadership on my shoulders like never before.

I serve on a large leadership team with incredibly gifted people. Like most teams, everyone has different gifts, unique to them and utilized at different levels of leadership. Some of our greatest strengths are also some of our greatest weaknesses. Those weaknesses have caused division, distrust, or disloyalty at different times on our team. I’m not exempt from those experiences. Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels like we’re in an extended season of fragmentation as a leadership team. I see the fractures in so many working relationships. And I’ve felt the burden of that.

Something happened this week that resurfaced feelings of insecurity and distrust for me. Even feeling that caused me guilt, because I want to be unified with my team above all else. But as I got quiet, I sensed the Lord asking me to look inward at the cause of my insecurity. What’s been revealed to me so far is: I cling too hard to my leadership as if it’s wholly mine. And when something is a gift from God, that can never be true.

A church leader once said, “You are the most difficult person you will ever lead.” How often I forget that. As I sat in my office processing what to say or what to do, again the Holy Spirit whispered into my soul that my fight is not against flesh and blood. It’s not against people. It’s against the divisive enemy and my own self-serving motivations.

I struggle to know how to fight that and so I prayed. I’m still praying. That Jesus would show me how to lead like He led. Help me to lead myself through feelings and insecurities. Help me to be on the solution side for bridging the gap between our leaders. Help me to be an arrow that points back to Him. I’m a leader in desperate need of The Leader.

There’s a dream I have that if everyone on my team could know Jesus, really know Him, this would all be easier. If we all surrendered our fears to Jesus and waited on God to green light our ideas, we’d be better at trusting each other. Maybe that’s my dream to come true in eternity. Maybe it’s a vision God’s casting for our team in my heart.

As I’ve been studying the Gospels this month, I’ve noticed how often Jesus highlights the importance of believing. Believing that He is who He says He is. Believing so that our eyes can be opened to more. Believing in the hope that’s on the other side of His sacrifice. What left me in awe this week is realizing how many people saw all the amazing things He did, and still it didn’t change anything in their lives.

They still didn’t grasp the complexities of Jesus being fully God and fully man. Even when His disciples were present for His miracles and His teachings, still they couldn’t see the bigger story Jesus was revealing to them. The people that spent the most time with Him still had missing perceptions of Him at times. And yet, Jesus walked in unwavering confidence with the Father in the midst of so much unbelief.

I want to lead like He led. I want to believe the best in people and at the same time, not be upended when there’s tension within my team. I want to walk in confidence that Jesus is the only one who can change the hearts of the people I lead alongside and yet, always be ready to point people back to His greater story.

So as I navigate through this next chapter of my leadership, I’m praying that I’ll get out of my own way. That I’ll keep relearning the lesson I learned all those years ago: my need for accountability is not determined by other people and my leadership is not wholly mine. May you and I lead with the confidence that because we believe in Him, our leadership can be wholly His.

Take care & take heart,