Leadership Pain

Leaders deal with all kinds of people. Wonderful people, giving people, encouraging people...and some other not so nice people. Maybe it's because leaders attract more attention than the average person and so difficult people gravitate to that. Maybe it's increased levels of spiritual warfare for leaders. Maybe it's because leaders are often in the fray of activity that they find these difficult people and situations. It';s amazing how one hurtful person can ruin a day or week (or month...year etc.). It's amazing how spiteful, cruel, stupid and insensitive people can be. But an even more amazing thing is to watch a great leader, a mature and loving person, deal well with hurt. It's a beautiful sight and worth seeing. It reminds me of the One Truly Great Leader whose example we follow.

Let's be those who rise above, forgive, love, pray, extend grace, correct, speak truth and act like our Leader even in the face of people who are misusing or mistreating us.

How Not To Waste Your Pain

Everyone experiences pain in various forms. Pain can be one of the most valuable and powerful tools for good in our lives if we respond to it rightly.

Do a quick survey in your life right now. What areas of your life have you been experiencing pain in the several months? Relationships? Circumstances that haven't gone well? Irritations? Difficulties at work? At home?

You have probably not found it a pleasant or an easy survey. Even facing our pain can be difficult. Many of us only face it when it is consuming us but there is little we can productively do about it then. We must be willing to engage our pain, gaze into it's depths and do the nasty work of wresting with it until we know how to rightly respond to it.

Step 1. Face it. Don't run from it. Don't ignore it.

But that is not the end. Too many of us when facing our pain move from their to a few other faulty responses.
We let it drown us, turn us negative, whine and complain.
We find someone or something to blame. We search for a scape goat.
We turn to self-help, self-esteem, self-improvement techniques to relieve the pain.

What is fundamentally missing from these attempts to deal with our pain? Their main goal is relief.
As strange as it may sound, relief is not the main need you have when you are in pain.
Pain is meant to point you and I somewhere...or rather to Someone.


But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. --C.S. Lewis

You may never know that JESUS is all you need, until JESUS is all you have. --Corrie Ten Boom  

We have become committed to relieving the pain behind our problems rather than using our pain to wrestle more passionately with the character and purposes of God. Feeling better has become more important than finding God. - Larry Crabb

The goal of pain and pleasure is to point us to the One who alone can fill and fulfill us. If we aim to let God use our pain to lead us closer to Himself and we will discover a whole new realm of life and joy even (or especially) in the midst of your trials. This is why "in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." (Romans 8:37) Why? Because many times it is IN all these things (trials) we experience the presence and love of God the most.

One of the Most Significant Experiences of My Life

I thought I would blog about a handful of experiences that seem significant to me over the 34 years of my life.

The first one I remember is a bit depressing. I remember very distinctly one day realizing that life had gotten very confusing lately. I was around 12 years old. I felt lonely, dark, empty and lost. I noticed an inner ache that would not go away. I found myself searching for acceptance from my friends as I had always done but now there was something more at stake. Something within me was clearly broken.

Over the next couple years I found myself searching in everything I could think of to ease the 'ache' I felt. I pursued all the things that promised fun. They were fun in the moment I experimented with them; in fact, they seemed to work; the 'ache' would go away for a while. But then it would come back, usually stronger than ever. The things I was trying were only masking the 'ache'; they were taking the edge off the pain but not dealing with the symptom.

Somewhere along this time I become fascinated with the book of Ecclesiastes. It describes a man who looks for meaning in everything he can think of. He is a man who has access to every pleasure and adventure a person possibly could in his day. He comes to the conclusion that everything is meaningless. That nothing in this life satisfies. That it is all "chasing after the wind", pointless effort. Money, romance, adventure, work (like a great big project)...all leave him empty.

Here I was, 13 years old and empty. Believing that life was meaningless. Numbing out my inner pain with the "fun stuff" of life. At this time many of my friends were also struggling to find happiness. I had many deep conversations with them and I discovered another shocking thing. My friends all wanted something...more money, more popularity, a certain girl to like them or a perfect romance, a better family (parents not divorced or a brother that didn't beat them up, etc.). They seemed to believe that if they gained this thing they were searching for then they would be happy. Their pursuit of "more" became their life ambition.

My problem? I had it all. I was popular, had girlfriends, had money, had a great family and had discovered that all that this world has to offer doesn't satisfy. My conclusion? If nothing could fill the 'ache' in my soul and I would have to spend the rest of my life going from one "high" to the next to numb out the pain, then life was not worth living. I became very suicidal. Badly wanting to end my life and relieve myself of a life of misery. I became consumed with either dying or numbing out the pain. I would stay up as late as I could, being as busy as I could because at night in my bed, before I went to sleep, the 'ache' seemed the worst.

This is my memory of Junior High. Not very pleasant but filled with laughter, games, craziness. On the outside, anyone would have pegged me as one of the happiest kids around.

Then somehow, a Teen Missions flyer ended up in my hands. I don't know if my parents (who are Christians) found it and got it to me, if I got it at my church or if it came in the mail.

So much needless pain.

God knows best how life can be lived. People mess it up. When we live our own way, this world's way, or whatever way that is different than God's plan, we hurt ourselves and the people around us. So much of life's pain is caused by living in ways that are not God's plan.

Simple things like...
-Great sex within a marriage covenant.
-Stewarding our finances well.
-Growing the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control) in our hearts.
-And so many more would keep us from so much pain in our lives. Oh, that people would learn and follow God's ways!!!! Oh, that churches would rise up and fulfill our mission to help people learn and follow God's ways. How great our lives could be.