Theology of Credible Leadership - Lesson 21

Dr. John Johnson
Theology of Credible Leadership
Challenges and Inevitable Suffering
Lesson Transcription

We get closer to the end of, this, the series of lectures on leadership and theology and thinking theologically about leadership. It's important. We think theologically also about challenges and suffering. So we come to this next subject, challenges or maybe the inevitable suffering that comes to leaders.   

I'm guessing that anyone who talks about leadership and comes to this theme of challenges and suffering, it becomes personal. It becomes personal because almost any leader that's been in any form of leadership for very long will face challenges. They will face suffering. One gets to the helm of leadership, and a leader suddenly faces this reality that leadership is hard.   

It is really hard at times. It inevitably has its share of pain and grief. There's criticism, people second guessing, comparisons, unwilling, followers, disappointing results. The list could go on. A leader comes to find that crucibles are woven into the fabric of everyday leading. Every leader faces them, whether it's prejudice or imprisonment or, or illness or setbacks or formative losses.   

There are these wonderful days not to paint it all in a negative way. There are many wonderful days as the leader. There are are days. You feel so excited, so privileged. It's fun to lead. I love leading, but one also has to realize it.   

It comes with its own hardships, its own obstacles, its own grievances, its own embarrassments, even acts of sabotage. It's true in every context of leadership. It doesn't matter which context you're in, whether you're in the athletic world as a coach or a manager. You're going to get criticized. You're going to get fired. You're in the political world, and you're going to be voted off, voted out.   

I should say. You're in the corporate world and you're suddenly fired. You're in the religious world and you are released or things that you had such great hopes for. Don't go the direction you intended. So let's again, go back to some basic questions here. And an obvious question here is why I think lots of leaders at some point are find themselves saying, why God, why I believe you summoned me to this and you've called me to lead.   

But why does that have to be so hard? Why does that have to be so painful? Why does it happen? Well, why does it happen? There are some obvious answers here.   

First of all, it happens because leaders are visible and that makes them vulnerable. Leaders are those who are on stage and they on stage are there where people can see all their strengths and weaknesses. To a certain extent, I'm standing here on a stage of sort, and when you are up in front, you suddenly feel a certain nakedness of vulnerability.   

People, they, people see your strengths. People are evaluating you, and people can see your weaknesses. It's there for all to see leaders and the on the stage and up in front tend not to hide. In the back where leadership gets lost, they are out in front where they become, again, these visible targets. So it's not too hard to, to answer the question why leaders are also objects of expectation.   

Why is it sometimes so hard to be a leader? It's because when you get to leadership, you've often told people what you're going to do, what your dreams are. I, I believe, if you will call me to lead, we will see this congregation really grow and, and flourish. I believe that under my leadership, we will restore health.   

One could go with all the promises that build up expectations. But oftentimes when a leader, gets on stage, so to speak, these list of expect expectations and needs and demands grow, and often they get way beyond us. Some are reasonable. I think over my years as a pastor, I've met people who have reasonable expectations.   

They expect me to be faithful to preach the word of God, and I seek to do that. They have an expectation that if they're going through a really hard time and they need to talk to someone, I'll be there. They have a reasonable expectation that if they're in the hospital, I will show up. But sometimes people begin to have unrealistic, expectations.   

They begin to assume a certain perfection, if you will, or they begin to expect that you will be able to do things that are way beyond your ability to carry out. There will be the expectation of growth that actually you have no control over. There will be cultural changes that no one anticipated. There will be deficits there, there will be, deficits and, and there will be assets.   

Oh, but there'll be deficits, and that will be really hard. Here's the third reason why we often face, these challenges that, and it's because, and I go back to Gary Wills, who in his book, on certain trumpets makes this point that leadership, its very nature, is a feud. It's a conflict. It's inevitable that there will be this conflict. Leaders step into a context that can often be volatile, complex on certain.   

Some will see you as a renter and they're the long-term owners. You didn't anticipate it would be like this. You didn't think that when you got on stage, so to speak, that there would be this fight. But it emerges. It's often a contest of wills, a clash of egos, turf issues, ownership issues.   

So there is this feud that leaders need to be aware of. Once they start to lead, there will be some that will immediately feel threatened. There will be some who will feel like you've stepped into their turf. My first church, it felt so much that way. Here I was this outsider that people had called to lead and shepherd them. And I was a certain hope to people, but I could tell immediately that I was a certain threat to people. I always found myself at times fighting and warring with people who largely wared with me because they saw me as stepping onto their turf.   

It became an issue of power, an issue of control. So sometimes leaders face this challenge because by its very nature, as Wills puts it, it's a feud. It's the McCoys and the McCormicks. Sometimes leaders.   

Here's a fourth reason. Leaders face challenges because let's be honest, leaders are flawed. There are going to be challenges. There are going to be criticisms. There's going to be a certain amount of suffering and pain, because we are prone to make misjudgments. We will make misjudgments. We will make mistakes. We will dream dreams that aren't realistic.   

We will let power, if we're not careful, begin to corrupt on the edges. We will therefore then overstep our bounds. We will maybe on occasion, micromanage or on the other side under manage. And this will lead to this crucible of painful criticism or loss of support or potential release. Leaders who find meaning, and learn from them are the true leaders.   

Gergen puts it so there can be good things from it, but it's, it's so painful. So here are some of the reasons why. Now I want to talk a little bit here about theology. We always come back here to ask the question, what does theology tell us about challenges in suffering?   

And what we discover is that that theology helps us in understanding to this question why? It tells us why. And we go back to again, this often, this reference point. Why, why do we face this? Because we're sinful people. There's a sinful nature and there's a sinful nature in leaders. On the surface, we might, we might see our challenges as sourced in difficult people or grueling circumstances or unexplainable setbacks.   

But many of our painful troubles come out of hearts that are distorted desires that are driven by egoistic lusts wars. That as James puts it, we all get into James four verse one. Deep within us in our own lives as leaders, because of sin, is this radical self-centeredness that work that aims to hinder our leadership.   

A lack of training or experience might play a role in our missteps, but leaders are, again, this mixture of creatureliness of goodness and fallenness. And in our fallenness, there is this propensity to make mistakes. What there is particularly so is this propensity, to pride.   

Almost every leadership failure comes back to this. Leaders become, over time enamored with power. As we looked at, we began to assume privileges that are not ours, that are not ours to have or once, and lust take over. And this leads to inevitable, implosions as Proverbs 1618 warrants.   

And we look in scripture, and we see this in countless leaders, think of Moses. Part of what undid him because of this sinfulness we all deal with in our lives, was a certain temper in which things got out of control. And he lost his leadership, or Saul who became unstable, or David and his lusts or Solomon and his abuse of power, that the wonderful thing about wisdom is that wisdom enabled him to therefore do great things.   

But with great things came increasing power. And power in a certain sense, did him in. Or we think of Uzziah, who got a taste of, again, being the king, being in authority, but began to move outside of his boundaries into areas he was never to enter into. Or Jonah whose own pride led to resentment and rebellion or Peter in his impo impulsiveness.   

We all have the sinful nature as theology shows us that explains why as leaders we often fail and explains why the people we lead can often be so difficult to lead because there is that same sinful nature that drives them, that explains at times some of these toxic environments we can find ourselves in.   

So some challengers are less about our brokenness and more about the brokenness of others, challenges we find that can lead to divisiveness within the people we lead. People who become mean-spirited or bent on having more control driven by their own twisted motives. People who will not let go of perhaps their past hurts.   

People who hang on to the fact that they are victims, which then can make it really difficult for people to lead. And again, we see in scripture these countless examples of leaders dealing with sinful people. Moses facing Miriam and Aaron as well as Cora and Dathan and other enemies, or David who's dealing with Doeg and Saul and the sons of Zeriah and his own son, Absalom or Solomon, who kinded contended with Hadad or Elijah, who has to deal with the Jezebel or Mordecai and Esther, who are encountered by Haman or Nehemiah with his Sanballat and Tobiah or Jeremiah with his Pashur, or Jesus betrayed by Judas and the religious establishment or Paul, who talks about being harmed by Alexander.   

So we look in our theology, we look in the revelation of God, and we see that when we as leaders feel the pain of suffering and challenge and criticism and, and attack, we look in scripture and realize, we're in good company.   

Every leader faces this. So the sinful nature helps to explain why we are where we are.   

What also helps explain this, this, this difficult time we often face as leaders is that there is also this on scene s war at work, there are these forces behind many of a leader's hardships is this war that's going on, this triad that gang up, on a leader, the triad of the world, the flesh and the devil who gang up as Ephesians six tells us to wreak their own havoc.   

There is this warning, therefore, Paul gives to Timothy, any leader who chooses to live a godly life in Christ, will be a marked person. Two Timothy three 12. So suffering challenges. Why, theology tells us also that part of it is it goes back to the purposes of God.   

Sometimes conflict and suffering have little to do with personal sin or this unseen war I've just talked about. Sometimes it has everything to do with the mysterious will of God. We can regard setbacks as simply a matter of life, a matter of some unfortunate fate. But the reality is when we sometimes step back to go, God, I'm trying to understand this. Sometimes it goes back to the fact that God is doing something we can't see there.   

There is something that, is going on under the purposes of God who is always purposeful, who's often doing things just that we can't see. We can't explain, we can't understand that our faith tells us ultimately is part of his loving purpose, his wise purpose. Hence the summons of God does not guarantee the absence of difficulty.   

Ashley sometimes initiates it. Job is the classic example where Abraham summoned to lead a nation, but he spent years facing delay. Or Joseph who received this vision to lead, but was promptly hurled into a pit. Or Moses, who is prepared to lead a people into the promised land, only he has to face a 40 year reversal or David anointed and then sent to the desert.   

Or Jeremiah becomes a mouthpiece for God and is thrown into the pit. Or Paul is summoned to lead and left for dead in Lystra, imprisoned in Philippi, mocked in Athens and scorned by the churches he planted all seemingly under the providential hand of God. So why do we face, challenges suffering? Well, there is, there is, these various reasons that I've noted, reasons we often see in leadership books that explain why leadership has its challenges.   

But we see as we go deeper, a theology that tells us that there is a sinful nature at work that explains some of our suffering, but there's also the sovereignty of God, who's doing what God is choosing to do often, almost maybe in every case, to build us up and to mature us.   

And at the same time, we face this because there is this on scene, war that is also at work. But I want to move to from this question of, of why I want to move to talk about the what. And by this here, what I'm, I'm raising is what are the challenges that come with leadership When we begin to break it down, what is that a leader should anticipate, if one is to lead?   

So when you look at at life experience, when you look at leadership books, and when you look at theology, here are some that, probably a lot of these that come out of my own personal experience that, that define, some of these crucibles.   

The first one is harsh criticism. So what are the challenges? I see this with Moses, and Miriam and Aaron, as I mentioned. Oftentimes these criticisms can be brutal. They can be in your face, they can be personal, Samuel and solve it seems like in their conflict.   

The criticism often got very personal. Sometimes it's there for everyone to see, but often this criticism is covert. An on sign note, a third party. There are these lightning rods, in the church that I've discovered that seem to attract the lightning of criticism. People that maybe are well-meaning, but they seem to attract people who criticize, who then come to bring their criticism to you.   

And sometimes that is, that is a very painful part of leadership. Secondly, there are setbacks. So we see, in scripture again, we, we see Joshua and ai, we see David and some of his battles. Much of leadership feels like moving forward, followed invariably by pushback.   

Two steps forward, two steps back. Sometimes leadership feels that way. It might be a financial reversal that was not anticipated, that just stops everything in terms of where you were hoping to go. Or it may be a health issue, or it may just simply be a personal defeat, an unexpected shift, a turn of events, a a closed door, a misunderstanding.   

And Joseph and Potiphar's husband, there are these, these setbacks. There are thirdly, these misunderstandings that are part of what describes these challenges. People often choose to hear what they want to hear, see what they want to see. What you see as confidence is viewed by some as arrogance.   

What you see as simply being decisive can sometimes be perceived as arrogance and dis and impulsivity. Patience can sometimes be perceived as weakness and slowness. Caution can be some in some people's minds. The expression of fear, straightforwardness can be judged as rudeness. You sought to extend care, but it was taken as condescension.   

So some of these painful crucibles, as we break them down, are simply misunderstandings. And sometimes they come from where people are at or what they choose to see. I remember, something that comes to my mind was in my first church I had, there was a family that really had very minimal resources. They were challenged to take care of their family and provide for their basic needs.   

And I became aware as a pastor that their youngest daughter needed glasses and they could not afford them. And I remember the day I drove over to their house with, with the resources to provide for the glasses for their daughter. I was assuming perhaps in my naiveness that they would welcome me and receive the gesture as a gesture of kindness. But I remember that day that the father of this little girl then turned on me and, and, and, and was so furious and so angry that I would assume that they had this need that made them less.   

And actually, as I reflect upon it, a lot of it made no sense. It's just there are times as a leader, you are assuming a, a response. But be prepared if the response is just the opposite.   

Sometimes it's a misunderstanding, but it can be very painful because there are times in these crucibles, the crucibles that wound and hurt the most is when your guard is completely down. Someone who in the foyer, after a, a message you've preached. When you're drained and you're spiritually vulnerable and your soul is vulnerable, make a malicious attack at, at a time that you're just not ready for.   

And so, misunderstandings or mistiming, another expression here is alienation. A decisive leadership act will sometimes separate those who disagree. It can lead sometimes to the end of a relationship. Paul and Barnabas, I don't need to tell you, we live in a very polarized society today. A lot of it because of politics or pandemics, lots of things.   

They have created a lot of alienation, alienation between people in church ministry, alienation between pastors and people. True leaders, will bring a certain alienation because true leadership brings change. It disrupts the equilibrium. It's splashes cold water on people's complacency. I thought in my first church when I came with these new ideas and the church was going to embrace them, and we're going to get past, some of our old ways and our old drifts was so painful, was painful because I realized I was splashing this cold water on their complacency.   

I was disrupting the conventional. I was confronting people with the need to risk. And this can be threatening. Nehemiah, I think, discovered this, especially when he went to Jerusalem to build the walls.   

He was disrupting the complacency of people. And it alienated, it alienates those who believe they're the preservers of the past, the caretakers of the present. It turns out that people are not all for change. Well maybe, let me put it another way. People sometimes are all for change as long as it doesn't affect them.   

But when it affects them, that can lead to alienation and this can lead to resistance. So what are markers? What are the challenges in particular? These are some, let me add another one to the list here. And that is loneliness. Leaders, leaders discover, a how can I put this?   

They discover an isolation that is its own kind of isolation. A loneliness that unless you're a leader, you can't under, you can't explain it. When I explain and talk about loneliness to other leaders, they immediately understand because, because in leadership sometimes it puts you here, and everyone else over here, it's just the way it works. Moments come when you have to take your stand and you discover that no one is willing to stand with you.   

There will be in times of loneliness, self-doubt and disappointment and hopes that are deferred. In one's aloneness, one begins to find that leadership is a high demand, low stroke environment. It's just the nature of the beast, so to speak. And so this will lead to what has sometimes been described as dark nights of the soul.   

You ever face those, and leadership one must prepare for them. These, these moments that, I don't know how else to describe it, where it can almost be physical when things around you turn really dark, when when suddenly you feel enclosed, almost as if you are in a dark cloud, that it's, you're not sure how to get out.   

And in this dark cloud, in this loneliness can lead to sometimes severe moments of depression. It just comes with leadership. I don't know how else to explain it. I remember in a very difficult time in my ministry in Holland, I was up in my study one night working, it was a Dutch winter. And so it was a not the most, well, let me put it another way, is certainly one of the more depressing times of the year.   

And It says, if a physical cloud came into my study that night and suddenly this wave of deep isolation, deep depression came over me, I'd suddenly realize, oh, there truly are dark nights of the soul. They come. It's part of the crucibles. The challenges there are, there are others as well.   

And in our next section, seek to bring a few more before we move to talk about how, how we can face these challenges.