“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with Me, and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me ~ watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me, and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” ~ Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message)
The rules of engagement and the definitions of success are not the same for Christian leaders as they are for leaders who do not follow Christ.
For Christian leaders, when your strategic results don’t measure up to your hopes, you are standing at a critical choice point. You can go one of two ways.
You can link your sense of God’s approval to your (failed) performance, which will lead you into a slow-death spiral of “try harder” and “do more” over and over again until you are utterly exhausted and drowning in confusion.
Or you can lean into grace and choose to be an active student of God’s wisdom and ways.
Option 2 is better.
Choosing the latter option allows you to stand firm in the absolute assurance that your approval and God’s delight in you are in no way threatened by your performance. And that frees you up to be authentically unattached and open-heartedly curious with God about what’s really going on with respect to the strategy you have employed.
