I will never forget the first day that I showed up at training camp. I came into it with excitement, joy and no expectations. I was so thrilled to see the brand new family that I would have the privilege to live with for 11 months.
No one came in knowing each other but chose to give a 110% and open themselves up to people who could potentially accept or deny them for who they are. As the hours and days went on we started getting to know each other and figuring out peoples’ excitements and fears about the race.
Some were excited about leaving the country, and some were terrified, some couldn’t wait to eat the different kinds of food, and some swore that if they had to eat spiders they would take the next plane home. We all came in with different outlooks on things and our different opinions, but one thing that many of us had in common was that almost no one wanted to be a team leader.
Now when I heard about team leading I really had no clue what it was and what it entailed, but when I found out what you were responsible for I quickly realized that I didn’t want to be one either!
As I began understanding the position of a team leader I came to the conclusion that I had nothing to worry about because the lord would never give me such responsibilities in 11 unknown countries that I had never been to. No way would the lord put me in charge of having the last say on finances and deciding where our money would go to, getting a team from point A to point B when traveling from country to country, getting in contact with all the ministries and host we would be staying with and leading a team spiritually deeper into the father’s heart.
God knew that the words logistics and responsibility were things that made me cringe. He knew that I had everything handed to me growing up and never had the normal worries or responsibilities of a usual 21-year-old. He knew the insecurities that I had in truly growing up and being an adult but more than anything, he knew the true woman and leader that he had predestined me to be before the foundations of the universe, and it was time for me to step into it and to stop running from it.
Now the crappy thing about emotions is that they have no intellect. They will react to either the truth or to a lie. So I’m sure that you can only imagine the reaction that I had when Caitlin, one of our alumni squad leaders came up to me and asked me to be a leader. If you asked Caitlin she would tell you that when she asked me she honestly thought I was going to literally punch her in the face, faint or take a dash towards the nearest exit. As I heard those words come out of her mouth, tears welled up in me as I slowly backed away dumbfounded. “No,” I told her over and over again, “Caitlin, you have the wrong person. You have no clue who you’re dealing with!” All of a sudden my emotions began reacting to the lies that where running though my head. You’re not smart enough to lead a team. You’re not responsible enough. You’re not determined. You’re not reliable. You’re not old enough. You’re not good enough. You’re not mature enough, and the list went on and on.
As Caitlin saw the fear in my eyes she began speaking God’s truth of who I was. Casey Caitlin said “You are a woman with a powerful voice, and when you talk the room stops and listens. When the lord calls you to usher in worship you obey him immediately. You are a woman with a bold and mighty passion after the father’s heart and you have a mighty desire to pull people into the love, intimacy and obsession that you experience with your God!” Now don’t get me wrong all of these things were great to hear and very humbling and powerful words, but the only thing at that point that I heard was “Casey, you got the whole spiritual thing down, but when it comes to the logistical side of things you’re going to have your team wandering in the desert for 40 years just like the Israelites.”
So I decide to go off on my own and tell God that he needed to speak to me right now because at this rate there was no way in hell I was going to be team leader!
Until I heard a still small voice say to me “Casey, I will follow you anywhere you go and I will never leave you in this journey that I have called you to”. So of course with hearing the sweet words of my daddy’s voice, I melted in his arms with the word weakness stamped on my forehead and said ok . . . . . let your will be done. On this journey I have experienced that the lord’s will for us is always higher then our own and we will be put to shame every time we try to show off our planes in front of his face thinking that ours are better. I will be the first to say that I got put to shame when I told the lord my plans that I had for this trip, and if I would have chosen to say no to my calling to leadership I would have missed in my opinion one of the biggest gifts in my life.
Being in leadership I saw the lord take a frightened, confused, timid, doubtful, low confident girl and make her in to a humble, mature, responsible, confident, intelligent, wise and on top of it woman!
My words will never do justice to what the lord did in my heart through leadership, but it also changed my whole perspective on what I thought a leader was.
I learned that a leader is a person who is the first to die to their wants and their desires. They are a person who empowers others to be empowered and pushes others above themselves. A leader is someone who is called to put down their pride and choose to show their weaknesses to create a safe place so others can also be weak. A leader is a person who knows they are not there to make people happy but to do the lord’s will. They are people who will choose to go against the grain and press in to the tension when they want give up and quit. They are people who choose to show respect when respect is not being given. They are people who can truly rejoice when the lord gives others the spot light. They are people who chose to say I believe that the lord has put me in this position for a reason and I am going to own it. A leader is a person who is teachable and is never afraid to ask for help. They are people who delegate others to step up and also lead because they know they will fall without support. They are people who find their self-worth in the Lord and not in what others think of them and they know that they will have moments of failure but choose to learn from them and decide not to define themselves by those failures.
You guys, the journey that lord took me on in leadership was one of greatest but hardest journeys that I have ever been on so far, but with humility and joy in my heart I can proudly say that the lord walked me through every last one of those things that I proclaimed a leader to be. The Lord HAD to bring me to some of my lowest points to show me how much higher he was above every single one of them. I would not trade any of my struggles that I had in leadership because it shaped the person I became on this trip.
So with 6 mind blowing months of leading Team night Vision and Team Break Forth, the lord has called me in to a season of rest and brand new growth away from leadership. When I was asked to step down from leadership a huge sense of peace, joy and a sound mind came over me. In no way was I becoming weary or bitter towards leading but the lord had begun to speak to me about a season of rest that he was calling me in to that I would not be able to fully reach in leadership. So as I looked back on all the months that the lord had brought me through I heard one simple phrase being said to me, “well done my good and faithful servant you can now enter in to your promise land of rest.”
