The Leadership Moment

Martin Luther King had it and so did Winston Churchill and William Wilberforce. President Barack Obama has it currently. That golden time when the clash of divinely-matched circumstances brings our fledgling inner conviction to outer courage--a fusion toward strong, pungent patience of faith; when we take up mighty and faith-held arms of justice, and strike fearlessly, faith unswerving--the moment of truth beckons. With poise the moment is taken captive.

And these moments occur to all of us, whether our worlds are large or small. There comes a time when we must take a stand and show leadership, from leadership over self to leadership over a team, a business or an entire nation.

The leadership moment is when push comes to shove. It’s when the situational leader in each of us discerns both the opportunity and the threat and our sense of fight overtakes our sense of flight. We’re suddenly larger than ourselves, bigger people than normal. The time is ours.

And this is what it’s like for the persecuted Christian, as much as any other story of courage that makes the motion pictures. Urged not to give up, the writer of Hebrews exhorts the receiver…:

“Do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised… we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved” –Hebrews 10:35-36, 39 (TNIV).

The leadership moment is a time when ‘planets align,’ when God is with us strongly in what we need to do. We do not shrink back. We wax and do not wane. We are alert, still of spirit, flexible but strong of mind, loose in the body.

We think, we plan, we pray. And when the finite moment comes we’re ready, and we do one hundred percent what needs doing… to our death if necessary.

Copyright © 2009, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved.