Leadership Pain With Sam ChandSýnishorn

The Privilege of Leadership

Managing the causes of leadership pain (what I call bleedership) is only part of the solution. We can only raise the threshold of our pain if we deepen the gratitude in our hearts. A heart of thankfulness is the appropriate response to our perception of generosity and kindness shown to us. Thanking God for his love, power, and wisdom—no matter how or where he leads us—renews our hope, lightens our load, and puts steel in our soul. 

Few leaders have fallen as hard—or as publicly—as Peter. One of the most poignant conversations in the Bible occurred a short time after the resurrection. Jesus asked him three times, “Do you love me?” Jesus wasn’t being cruel; he was being thorough, kind, and gracious. He knew that restoration could only happen with complete honesty. This painful and tender moment was the turning point in Peter’s life. When he spoke about the wonder of God’s forgiveness, he was speaking from experience.

Peter’s letters were written to people who were strangers who had been scattered by persecution. What did they need to hear? What did their leaders need in order to lead during a time of pain and confusion? Peter gave the people a fresh sense of identity founded on grace. They may have been outcasts running for their lives and barely able to provide for their families, but God had a different perspective of them: they were kings and queens, priests who represented God to man and man to God, and prophets who proclaimed the grace of God to the world.

When we sense the overwhelming privilege of being God’s children, and the wonderful privilege of being called by him to care for those Jesus died for, we have a very different view of pain, whatever its case. Exhaustion, entitlement, and self-pity erode our threshold of pain, but a fresh sense of the privilege of grace raises it to the skies. And with that, we’re secure. And with that, we can endure.