Our story as leaders, as humans, is that of seeking more. While more can be bad, more can be good too. More of God is good. More love for others is good. More gain and material things for the right motives and in the right order of priority can also be good. But in this maze of “more,” if we reduce everything to their irreducible element, there are three that I think all leaders should seek more of. Dare I say, we should be obsessive to get more of, and all these three have a Biblical basis.
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- Contentment – Learn how to be content. If you seek health, that can fail. If you seek a vibrant family, family members can die. If you seek a big paycheck, with material success, we know that can be lost. What if something unforeseen happens, and you end up in prison, or homeless? Yes, all of that is possible. As the apostle Paul said, he learned to be content in any situation. Learning to be content is inside work; it is immune to outside happenings. It is resilience and grit. Learning to be content is a beautiful thing to seek. This is the work of asking, can you be content, no matter what? Start the journey.
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- Spiritual Grounding – This is the foundation. For a disciple of Christ, this is crucial. But what are we really seeking? Are we seeking that fuzzy feeling that some churches have, where you walk in and see all hands risen, swaying, and looking up to heaven? Are we seeking God’s presence, no matter what?I was recently in Matera, a beautiful town in Italy. Staying in the city center in front of the Catholic church, my family and I were awakened by a band playing. It was the town celebrating a Catholic religious feast. I went down and took my family inside the beautiful church during service. Even though I am not Catholic, I could see a similar aura to some evangelical churches. People seemed to feel closer to God through the solemnity and the smell of incense.When we want to be grounded in the Christian faith, what does that really mean? It is a journey to find out. It is intention, it is time, it is prayer, it is a love for God. It is a depreciation of things of the world. It is more than reading Scripture: it is digging deep, answering questions, praying memorized verses. It is experiencing God on a day to day basis.
- Wisdom – I have studied leadership actively since 2008. I can say that leading better became my god, until I felt the Lord reminding me on several occasions that God must be god. That leadership is not the answer to our fallen world, Jesus is the answer.
So where is the importance of becoming better as a leader? It is becoming a better parent, a better spouse, becoming a better host, communicator, or business person. It is seeking wisdom. Seeking wisdom is definitely in the Bible. According to ChatGPT, “Approximately 60-70% of the Book of Proverbs contains guidance that can be directly or indirectly applied to leadership.”
Seeking wisdom is what each leader, each Christian, should do in all areas of life. Godly wisdom. Practical wisdom. Illuminating wisdom.
Jesus said to “seek first the Kingdom” (Matthew 6:33). When we seek Him first, the other things we desire to have fall into place.
