“He has not a single redeeming defect.”

-Benjamin Disraeli, of another British parliamentarian

Warm-up: Exodus 5:21-23

I somewhere read that a Huey Cobra helicopter, practicing auto rotations during a military night-training exercise, landed on its tail rotor, separating the tail boom from the rest of the aircraft. Fortunately, the aircraft wound up on its skids, sliding down the runway doing three-sixties in a shower of sparks. As the Cobra passed the tower, the following exchange occurred:

Tower: “Sir, do you need assistance?”

Cobra: “I don’t know, tower. I ain’t done crashin’ yet!”

As I look at my life and leadership over the years I have to admit that much of it has been one resounding crack-up after another. My best-laid schemes have crashed and burned; my brilliant strategies have augured in, and I ain’t done crashin’ yet.

Yet God wastes nothing-not even failure. He discerns the possibilities in every humiliating debacle and uses them to make us better leaders than we ever thought possible. The whole thing stands on its head.

God’s ways are not our ways. We equate leadership with lordship; he equates it with servanthood. We seek power so we can set things right; he strips us of importance so he can do the better job. We want strength so we can help God get on with his work; he weakens us and reveals our ineptitude so he can get us out of the way. We advertise our credentials so others can be sure of us; he lets our assets fail us so others see that apart from God we can do nothing.

It is a commonplace of leadership that weakness is a hindrance. We have to be strong and able and always look good in other’s eyes. But in spiritual matters flaws and frailties can be valuable leadership traits. For one thing they help others count less on our leadership. It makes our would-followers more dependent on God to find their way.

Take Moses for example. His experience, his background, his talents, his training had earned him the admiration of God’s people. They looked to him for their deliverance. They had to learn that all such hope is vain, that their leader, at best, was as weak and frail as they. He could not break through Pharaoh’s defenses; he could not reduce Israel’s servitude; he could not get his people free. Then the way was prepared for everyone to lean on God.

People are still inclined to fix on personalities, to be impressed by intellect, education, leadership skills, the passion of a leader’s causes, and the strength of his will. They begin to believe that wisdom and power are fully vested in that person.

Such adulation, however, is nothing more than humanism–making man or woman the measure of all things. What’s worse, it’s idolatry: a false centering on someone other than God.

And so God lets us fall off our pedestals from time to time. Failure, indecision, inability to achieve what we’ve set out to do, bring humbling certainty of our own inadequacy. They strip our followers of their illusions about us and their dependencies. They show our admirers that we, like they, “shuffle along on feet of clay,” (Brennan Manning’s phrase). They teach our enthusiasts that the only good thing about us is the goodness of God.

Our Lord knew that truth well: he was fully aware that his good came solely from God (cf. John 5:19). In his incarnation he never acted as God but as a man fully dependent on God (cf. John 5:19, 30). When an effusive disciple began to gush, “Good teacher…” Jesus stopped him in his tracks: “Why do you call me good?” he said. “There is no one good but God” (Mark 10:18).

David Roper 7/2/01

* * * * * * *

David & Carolyn Roper

Idaho Mountain Ministries

E-mail:

Related Articles:

• Pastor Burnout Statistics
• Stress and Burnout in Pastoral Ministry: A Prologue
• Leadership for success
• Tribes: we need you to lead us
• Becoming a leader of no reputation

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.