In my previous two blogs, I shared 3 lessons on building communities of courage and 3 insights to empower and release others. We left off with the idea that empowering leaders help position people where they can get the best results as they use their God-given talents, personality, and skills to partner in bringing about the “restoration of all things.”
To round out this pattern of 3s, in my third and final blog in this leadership series I want to talk about 3 beliefs that every empowering leader must hold—not only to help people get “results in the restoration,” but to lead in life. We need these beliefs to shape every area of life and relationships, no matter our position of leadership.
Belief #1: No matter what is going on around you or how you feel about any problematic situation, there is always a solution.
When we carry this core conviction, we step into the supernatural realm consistently. Our faith is stirred to believe God to lead us to divine solutions.
More importantly, we stop blaming our circumstances and become empowered by the Spirit to manage ourselves. The solution may not be an easy one, nor the most desirable, but it will keep us from being a slave to our circumstances. We begin to live free!
My wife and I recently took a position at a church in South Africa. Our plan was that my business would help us financially because the church couldn’t pay us what our family of 5 boys, 2 dogs, 8 lizards, and, oh yeah, Mom and Dad, needed. We have a lot of mouths to feed! However, after a year at the church, we came to a point where, for various reasons, my business wasn’t producing what it needed to and the church couldn’t pay us any more than they currently were.
Initially, we were upset that our plan wasn’t working out. We wanted to blame the church, God, or anyone else that seemed worthy of blame. But after a few days of processing, we remembered that the Father had empowered us to make decisions and that there was always a solution!
I returned to Durban to explore whether my business there could still make it. Little did I know that after being gone for a year, the Father had positioned my business for incredible growth. After a few meetings, I realized that He was providing for us back in Durban. We moved our family back to Durban and the business grew dramatically over the next two months.
These moves were not easy. They were not fun. They were financially costly and very difficult emotionally, but we grew because of it and were better positioned than we would have been in the other city.
There is always a solution.
Belief #2: People are better than they believe they are.
As leaders, it’s our job to engage with people, and this means making ourselves vulnerable to experiencing their areas of pain and brokenness. It is imperative that we approach this experience with the belief that people are better than they believe they are.
The human struggle to believe the best about ourselves and others began in the garden. When Adam and Eve gave space in their minds for the enemy to sow seeds of doubt, they didn’t realize that they would not only doubt the Father—they would also doubt the greatest creation of the Father: themselves. This cycle of unbelief in who the Father created has played out in generation after generation, keeping us locked in broken identities that produce broken behavior.
Yet Jesus decisively demonstrated the Father’s belief in us by becoming one of us and dying for us. He saw beyond our hurt, pain, suffering, betrayal, and rejection. He saw restored sons and daughters who would grow up to look like their Father, just as He does. He saw a powerful people who could bring the kingdom to earth.
We are called to see ourselves and others through the Father’s eyes. We must stop allowing the enemy’s lies about who He is and who we are to cause distance between us. Now is the time to engage in leading and building communities of courage by believing that people are better than they think they are. They are the Father’s treasure, albeit scuffed, dirty, broken, and beaten. They are and can be restored to the people the Father sees them to be.
Belief #3: The only real competition is competition against possibilities.
As leaders, we are always facing some type of problem. We must recognize that every problem is a competition against the possibilities. We are not competing against each other, other churches, or even other businesses. We are only competing against the possibilities.
Another way to put this is that we are believing for miracles. This is the competition space—the space of the miraculous.
We see this repeatedly in the life of Jesus. The Pharisees, Romans, and other individuals were threatened by Jesus because they saw Him as competition. They never recognized that Jesus was not here to compete but to empower. He didn’t have to compete because He created it all. He had nothing to prove to others. In His humanity, He was simply competing against the possibilities, and He won against those possibilities every time. Sickness, disease, suffering, emotional pain—every time He encountered them, He won.
I recently relaunched my coaching business in a particularly difficult market, with no capital and a lot of other coaches in the same space. In the lead-up to the relaunch, I was quite nervous about finding clients and getting things moving. I started to focus on all the other coaches and fear quickly came to overthrow my peace.
Then my belief intervened and my focus shifted towards the possibilities. What possible miracles lay in wait? What possible supernatural events did the Father want me to experience? Fear left as I began to compete against the possibilities.
I’m happy to say that since the relaunch, the business has been doing more work than it ever has. Focusing on competing against the possibilities caused me to have conversations with people I didn’t initially think of. It led me to step out into a place of faith and let the Father truly become my business partner.
He has empowered us to compete against the possibilities now—and win! When we as leaders take this stance, it makes it much easier to partner and support others, even when those others may become better or more successful than we are. We are not competing! We already have it all.
What are the possibilities when we partner with the Father to see heaven come to earth?
Let’s go after these 3 beliefs:
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There is always a solution.
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People are better than they believe they are.
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We are only competing against the possibilities.
I look forward to hearing stories of your community of courage and how it is changing the world around you!
P.S. We can’t wait to see you at our LOP Summit in a couple weeks in Orlando, Florida! There are still tickets available—get yours today!
