A Letter to Myself

Dear young leader,

The anointing of the Lord to lead is selected by an invisible hand. God raises up leaders and tears them down.

You will face the praise and scorn of others simply because you will be in their eye. The person at the front receives the most criticism because he will also receive the most praise. These two facets: criticism and praise are the wisdom of God at work. One cannot happen without the other. If a man is only praised he will become prideful; if a man is only scorned he will become discouraged. Learn from both.

Learning from the praise of men is as critical as learning from their criticism. Their praise will tell you what they want. He will find that if he leverages the praise of others he can increase his standing in their eyes and yield greater comfort for himself. And if he can avoid their criticism it will have the same result. Yet, he will find that he is not leading them, they are leading him.

Mere leaders will always derive their sense of value from the criticism and praise of men; while heaven leaders will derive theirs from God. The praise of man is candy to the soul, their criticism, his poison. And yet, neither the praise of man nor his criticism persuades the heart of God. Leaders may be praised or scorned, yet the heart of God remains unmoved by their chatter.

When a young man finds himself in leadership he may begin to think of himself as something special. He may think that his gifts or charisma that have lent to this position are an endorsement from heaven. Yet, the endorsement from heaven comes not in the gift given but how the gift is utilized. A young man may use his gifts to promote himself to fame and glory; avoid this. Ask, who am I promoting through my gifting?

¹² Then David knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel and had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel. (2 Sam. 5:12)

God anoints leaders for others. He anoints them for Himself.