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As we consider pondering what it means to have Courage to Lead, it is important to know that in any part of our story, personal, relational or visional, there will come a defining moment. The moment that we are forced to decide if we will live life as it has always been, or if we will take a step of faith and move in a direction or a way that produces change, brings healing, and affords growth.
These are not easy moments. Joshua faced it after he and the eleven other spies came back to tell the rest of the children of Israel what they had seen in Canaan. Their promised land. Read that again. The land God had told them was theirs! A promise. Their promise. Of the twelve only, Joshua and Caleb took God at His word and saw the bounty in the land instead of the giants.
Abiding does that. Remember, we talked last week about the most essential trait of a true leader that makes walls fall is that they are an abider. Abiders take God at His word. Abiders see the bounty instead of focusing on the giants. And trust me. There will come a time when you are taken to places where the enemy will do everything in his power to convince you that the giants are bigger than the promise!
Your family lineage and their strongholds try to convince you that, “this is just how you are.” Or “this is how you will always be.” Forgetting God’s promise that “for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2 Or maybe you are experiencing the pain of your children who aren’t serving God and the enemy convinces you he’s got them. They’re his. Forgetting “But the mercy of The Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children.” Psalm 103:17 Or the devil comes to you with the lie that God doesn’t have a plan or vision for you. That you have no value. No gifting. No real calling. Then why would Habbakuk write, in Habbakuk 2:2 “Write the vision down and make it plain on the tablets that those who read it may run with it.”
Oh my friends, the enemy loves to keep us focused on the giants! But we have been called to focus on the promises of God! Because it is those promises that are our weapons, when we come into our defining moments as leaders. And it is those promises that will give our hearts everything they need to refuse to be swallowed up by the voices of unbelief and to make the decisions necessary for walls to fall!
