Art of Leadership With Brian HoustonSample

Crisis at the crossroads

Are you a born leader? Or have you learned the art of leadership along the way? Perhaps you think you’re not a leader. Is there any such thing as a ‘born leader’? Does everyone have the ability to lead?

In my experience, a born leader is someone with an outgoing, confident, and decisive personality — someone who naturally takes charge. But that doesn’t necessarily make them a good leader, much less a great one. There is much more to leadership than a personality type. Of course, leadership looks very different in many people, circumstances, and set of responsibilities. Over the next five days, I want to speak to the leader within you, because however you see yourself, I believe every Christian is called to lead, so everyone qualifies!

Across the decades of my personal leadership journey, I have faced many crossroads and crises. Through each one, I have learned to correct mistakes, increased my capacity, and gained greater wisdom and discernment, both as a person and as a leader.

There are things that happen in our lives that can really shake us to the core and make us question what we believe. Maybe you have become disillusioned with God, thinking He doesn’t care about you. That’s a crisis of faith. Life has crushing disappointments; betrayal, relationship breakdown, financial stress, and so on, potentially causing major upheaval. No one asks for them, but when they come, we must decide which road we will take. If you are rooted and grounded in your faith in Christ and actively nurturing your relationship with Him, then although ‘stuff happens’, you can be confident that you will come through better, wiser, and stronger in life and leadership.

Are you facing a crisis at a crossroads in your life? This is not when your roots will deepen, but the time you’ll find out how deep they are. How deeply does God’s Word go in your heart? Is your faith in God or in people?

Just before He went to the cross, Jesus prepared His disciples for what they were about to face. He knew they would struggle and fall, that they would be overcome with fear and not understand what was happening. That’s why He spoke to them about what lay ahead…

“You’re about to make a run for it—saving your own skins and abandoning me. But I’m not abandoned. The Father is with me. I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.” — John 16:31-33 (MSG)

On the other side of their crushing disappointment, the disciples became pioneers of the Church, laying the foundations for every generation that would follow – including ours. They became the leaders they were born to be through a crisis of faith.

Leadership is a journey that includes many crossroads. You can walk out the journey with wisdom by making the right decisions as you continue to trust God at His Word. So, no matter what life throws at you, stay the course, and run your race to win.

So we do not lose heart… For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. — 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (ESV)