I have an ugly confession to make. I am addicted to leading. I’m addicted to helping others and participating in life-bringing conversations.
It’s not all bad to be addicted to such things. My spirit is riled up. I’m in love with this squad and what God is doing here. But a wise friend once told me that our greatest weaknesses are often our greatest strengths taken to excess.
I want to love well but I sometimes want to be affirmed for loving well. I want to serve, but I want recognition and validation. I want to sit with people, but I want to eventually have the answers.
My biggest fear as a leader is not knowing the answers. My biggest frustration as a leader is seeing peple share their revelations, knowing I had an influence, and struggling to celebrate their revelation over my fleshly desire to bring my influence to light.
I know this is terrible. It is ugly and messy. But we just finished a debrief and I’m too tired to say anything else. I’m too tired to know the answers. I’m too tired for avoidance. The only strength I have left is the truth.
The Lord brought this all up in the last couple days. Our leadership team encouraged Ky and I, and Jacie as well, to take a couple days and rest. I know I’m exhausted, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to go with the squad, to be with the teams, to press in with them. Thankfully, my wife fought for me by fighting me and I am getting some much need rest and some much needed detachment from the squad.
I think we become addicted to leading because we love the attention, we get drunk on the influence, and we feel important, valued, affirmed.
I want to celebrate and fully live into the things the Lord has for me, the gifts he has given me, the struggles I face, and truth He speaks over me without being addicted to a role, operating out of a false humility and insecurities about my worth.
I don’t know what else to do with all this for now, except to lay it bare before you, my community. Everyday, I see so much of what the Lord is doing on a daily basis: in nature, in diverse culture, in my wife, in Jacie, the squad, and ministry hosts. It truly is humbling to see how much God doesn’t need me for. But everyday, I see so much of what the Lord is doing in me and through me. Give me a healthy perspective, Lord, to see this humbly as well.
I am so thankful for this journey and for the things the Lord is doing in my heart. Challenge me to let go of my addiction to lead. There’s no place for it.
