This is the third and final post in our theme of “turning”. The message in our first post was turn with all your might, and it was based on the story of King Josiah.  When his eyes were opened to the truth of God’s commands, he turned to the Lord with all his heart, all his soul, and all his might.

The second post was about not getting turned back–back to business as usual or faith as usual.  The forces of the kingdom of the world will try to turn the leader back through resistance in the form of deception and temptation. We looked at the unnamed man of God in 1 Kings 13 who was deceived by an old prophet into disobeying God’s command.

Sometimes, faithful leaders in the Bible who start well do not finish well (or risk not finishing well) because they make bad choices or give up. This can happen for various reasons. Some were led astray by success.  Some made a poor choice of successors. Others were crushed by discouragement.  It brings to mind Galatians 5:7:

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

The same dangers face every faithful leader today. We will look at turning back after too much success and giving up (or trying to) by appointing the wrong successor or after growing weary and discouraged.  Choosing faithful integrity is only the beginning. We are called not just to start with faithful integrity—but to end with it. It is about not turning back or giving up.

Turning Back

Some Biblical leaders began faithfully, but success became their stumbling block. Power, prosperity, and prominence dulled their hunger for God and their vigilance in obedience.  Let’s consider how Solomon, Uzziah and Gideon turned back.

Solomon

As a young king, Solomon displayed humility, reverence toward God, and a desire to lead God’s people well.  In 1 Kings 3, we are told that King Solomon “loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father.”  When God offered Solomon anything, a humble Solomon sought wisdom to govern well:

I am but a little child.  I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?

As Solomon grew in wealth and power, things changed.  By Chapter 11 of 1 Kings, we learn:

King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, ² from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.”

And those women “turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.”

Solomon also amassed wealth and horses that violated the principles given to Israel’s kings in Deuteronomy 17:

Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, “You shall never return that way again.”  And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.

The humble, reverent Solomon turned back from pursuing God with all his might, a victim of his own success.

Uzziah

In 2 Chronicles 26 we are told that King Uzziah “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.” He “set himself to seek God . . . and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper.”

Just a few verses later, after reading about all Uzziah’s accomplishments in winning battles, building cities, building armies and becoming “very strong“, we learn that Uzziah turned back from pursuing God with all his might when he got too comfortable with success:

But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.

When the priests warned him to stop, he became angry, and the Lord struck him with leprosy.  Because of his pride, Uzziah lived out his days as a leper “excluded from the house of the Lord.”

Gideon

Gideon was named in Hebrews 11 as a hero of the faith.

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.

When the Midianites were oppressing Israel and the Lord told Gideon to save Israel, Gideon humbly replied in Judges 6, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”  Gideon goes on to follow God’s instructions, tearing down the altar of Baal and defeating the Midianites with only 300 men.

With his tremendous success, Gideon changed.  By Judges 8, he angrily punished fellow Israelites from Succoth and Penuel because they had refused to help him. Then he asked the men of Israel to give him gold from their spoils, and he made an ephod of it that became “a snare to Gideon and to his family.”  We learn in Judges 8 that Gideon, like Solomon, “had many wives“.  Success led Gideon the hero to turn back and fail to finish well.

Giving Up

Other illustrious Biblical figures didn’t turn back, but their reputations were tarnished by succession or discouragement-leading them to give up, try to give up, or question their call.  Let’s look at Samuel, Elijah, Jeremiah, and John the Baptist.

Samuel

1 Samuel 7 tells us that Samuel lived a life of obedience, “[judging] Israel all the days of his life“, but in the next chapter we learn that as he “became old“, he appointed his corrupt sons to take his place as judges, setting the stage for Israel’s demand for a king.

In post #152 (Leading Faithfully by Leaving Faithfully), we said that “leaving faithfully” is an essential element of “leading faithfully”.  Samuel failed to “leave faithfully”. By choosing his corrupt sons to succeed him, Samuel’s record was tarnished, and Israel suffered a string of kings who “did what was evil in the sight of the lord.

Elijah

Elijah is counted as one of the greatest prophets.  He performed mighty miracles, including calling down fire from heaven, bringing drought by God’s word and raising a dead man to life.

In 1 Kings 18, God calls Elijah to confront Ahab after Ahab’s wife Jezebel had killed all the prophets. Following a spectacular display of God’s power on Mount Carmel, Elijah fled into the wilderness in fear and despair, asking God to take his life.

Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life . . .. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

When God asked Elijah why he was there, Elijah replied:

I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.

Even after witnessing God’s power, Elijah became so discouraged with his circumstances that he did not want to go on. He wanted to give up.  God restored him with food, presence and a still small voice.

Jeremiah

Jeremiah was called by God to proclaim a message no one wanted to hear—and he suffered rejection, imprisonment, mockery, and loneliness. In Jeremiah 20, we see the prophet in deep pain, having just been beaten and put in stocks.  Faced with difficult circumstances, he laments:

O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived . . .. Cursed be the day on which I was born! The day when my mother bore me, let it not be blessed! . . . Why did I come out from the womb to see toil and sorrow, and spend my days in shame?

Unlike Elijah, Jeremiah shares that he has tried to give up but “there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shit up in my bones and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”

John The Baptist

Even John the Baptist, who boldly proclaimed Jesus and baptized him, began to question what he believed and wondered whether he should give up on Jesus.  In Matthew 11:2-3, we are told:

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

Dire circumstances even led John to question whether it was time to give up on Jesus being the Messiah.

Tremendous worldly success or tremendously difficult circumstances can push a well-intentioned faithful leader to turn back or give up on turning to God with all their might.

It is not unlike the warning in Proverbs 30:8-9:

Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.

The rich turn back because they do not think they need God (or do not need God any longer), and the poor give up on God because they fail to see him in their dire circumstances.

We believe the antidotes lie in humility and patience.

Humility as an Antidote to “Turning Back”

In post #196 (First Things – Humility) dedicated to the importance of humility, we said that humility is knowing who you are in relation to God’s creation and His plan, knowing who you are in relation to others, and knowing who you are in relation to God.

Humility is the key to understanding the “HOW” of the other three “first things”–Righteousness, Kingdom and Love–and it is a key to Wisdom.  In fact, leadership without Humility is antithetical to leading an organization with faithful integrity.

Not only is Humility relevant to leading an organization, Jim Collins identified it as an ESSENTIAL trait in order for a leader to take a business from “good to great”. These are his extraordinary findings:

The most powerfully transformative executives possess a paradoxical mixture of personal humility and professional will. According to our five-year research study, executives who possess this paradoxical combination of traits are catalysts for the statistically rare event of transforming a good company into a great one. 

The opposite of Humility is the pride and arrogance we see in Solomon, Uzziah and Gideon (and we know that the truly original sin was Lucifer’s pride, which led to his fall). Jim Collins points out that “celebrity” CEO’s do not have what it takes to lead an organization from “good to great”. In his book, To Change the World, James Hunter discusses the “unavoidable paradox between pursuing faithful presence and the social consequence of achievement; between leadership and an elitism that all too often comes with it.”

In the very strong words of James Hunter:

[Faithful presence] is also the antithesis of celebrity, a model of leadership that many Christians in prominent positions have a very difficult time resisting. Celebrity is, in effect, based on an inflated brilliance, accomplishment, or spirituality generated and perpetuated by publicity. It is an artifice and, therefore, a type of fraud. And so, whether leadership is expressed within the dynamics of celebrity or outright arrogance rooted in a sense of superiority, such leadership is artificial, unbiblical, organizationally unhealthy, inherently corrupting, and all too common in the Christian world—especially in the United States. Christianity needs to rediscover an alternative.

Solomon, Uzziah and Gideon became celebrities because God was with them, but then they turned back from the very God who gave them their success.

Humility is understanding and remembering who we are in relation to God. The renowned preacher Phillips Brooks expressed it this way:

The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is.

Solomon, Uzziah and Gideon forgot.  A faithful leader pursuing faithful integrity toward Biblical flourishing must never forget.

Humility as an Antidote to “Giving Up”

We believe Humility can also be a secret remedy to giving up when faced with difficult circumstances, and the secret lies in Matthew 18:4.  In Matthew 18:4, Jesus points to the humility of a child:

Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

But what does it mean to humble yourself “like this child”. We think there are two qualities of a child that line up with the Humility required of a faithful leader–dependence and trust.

Dependence. Children are completely dependent on their parents for survival and growth–food, shelter, education. Most children, particularly babies and small children, aren’t responsible for ensuring that there will be food for the next meal or a bed to sleep in each night or heat for their home. They don’t make decisions about their life. They are completely dependent on others for everything. BUT, the journey of young adulthood is all about moving to INDEPENDENCE–learning to care your yourself, provide for yourself and make decisions for yourself.

As we climb the mountain of independence (and even rebel against those on whom we were dependent), God is constantly calling us to yield our independence and return to dependence. But this time, our dependence is on an “unseen” provider and comes at the expense of our hard-fought independence! God’s Word is full of stories about the need to be dependent on him. Here are what a few commentators say about the need for, the importance of, and even the pain associated with, learning dependence on God:

Oswald Chambers: When God gives you a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will bring the vision He has given you to reality in your life if you will wait on His timing. Never try to help God fulfill His word. Abram went through thirteen years of silence, but in those years all of his self-sufficiency was destroyed.

Rick Warren: God’s path to a miracle often takes you through uncomfortable territory so you’ll learn to depend on him.

Os Hillman: The lesson here is to learn daily and complete dependence on God. Use your gifts and abilities through the power of the Holy Spirit. Ask Him daily for direction and wisdom. His ways won’t always line up with conventional wisdom. When we begin depending on our abilities only, God has a responsibility to make known to us who is the giver of the blessings.

Dr. Skip Moen: Perhaps we need to reconsider Exodus before we read John. Perhaps the path to [the abundant life] leads through the [wilderness] . . . the place where human life is unsustainable. How can the wilderness be a necessary path to superabundance? . . . The wilderness is our journey to dependence. Until we learn that lesson—deeply—the abundant life isn’t available. The way to a full life with God passes through Mordor.

Dependence is also at the core of crossing the fourth and most difficult Gap on the journey to faith/work integration–the Safety/Surrender Gap.

Trust. Children naturally trust–at least until they learn that people can’t be trusted. But when life has shown us that our childhood trust is naive and even dangerous, God calls us to trust him completely–trust an “unseen” guide who is trying to rob our independence!

Like the dependence/independence/dependence journey, God calls us to a trust/mistrust/trust journey. But the dependence journey requires us to complete the trust journey. In leading an organization, there are three elements to trusting God: trust his process (which may seem counter-cultural and even counter-intuitive), trust his timing (which is likely to be slower than ours) and trust his outcome (which is likely to be counter-cultural).

Patience as an Antidote to “Giving Up”

Embedded in trust is trusting God’s timing, but it deserves a few more words.  For a faithful leader on the path of Integriosity^®, Patience is one of the five key ingredients for executing a Re-Imagined Purpose, Re-Imagined Values and a Re-Imagined Culture.

It is difficult to read the Bible and not walk away feeling woefully impatient.  God’s story is full of people who patiently waited and persevered (the first cousin of patience) a LONG time–a VERY LONG time.  There are also numerous Biblical passages about Patience, which is one of the nine “fruits of the Spirit”.

Pursuing faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing is “playing the long game”, and that takes Biblical Patience (and perseverance).  It is the “long game” because it requires “heart-change” throughout the organization.

One appeal of many of the faith as usual Side Roads is that they avoid or delay the hard work of “heart-change”. Turning back to them may feel appealing, but the price is the missed purpose for organizations, the missed calling for leaders, the missed flourishing for people and the increased misery.

For a faithful leader becoming discouraged by difficult circumstances, Galatians 6:9 counsels to stay the course:

Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

PERSONAL NOTE (from PM): Whenever I see people facing dire circumstances and ready to “give up” on God, I think of the story of Chuck Yeager. You may recall that Yeager was the first pilot to break the sound barrier.  But he was not the first test pilot to try.  When his test plane began approaching the speed of sound, it began to shake more and more violently until it felt like it was going to fall apart.  Facing this “dire circumstance”, other test pilots pulled back and “gave up”.  What set Yeager apart was that he was the first to not “give up”.  When he broke the sound barrier, the plane stopped shaking and it was peaceful. When I was believing that God could restore our marriage in 2004, many mature Christians told me to “give up” and move on with my life.  They said it was hopeless and impossible.  Each time I heard this, God gave me a sign that I should keep going.  I believe many people give up on the verge of God’s success.  We are in the red zone without knowing it, and we walk off the field.  Dependence and trust.  Don’t give up on God.  Scripture tells us nothing is impossible for God, and his timing is perfect.

ESSENCE: This is the third and final post in our theme of “turning”. The first message was to turn with all your might to God when your eyes have been opened to the truth of God’s purpose for work and business. The second was about not getting turned back to business as usual or faith as usual by the forces of the kingdom of the world. This post is about not turning back and not giving up. Sometimes, faithful leaders who start well do not finish well (or risk not finishing well) because they make bad choices or give up. Some are led astray by success.  Some make a poor choice of successors. Others are crushed by discouragement. We see examples of these stumbles in some of the most prominent figures in the Bible–Solomon, Uzziah, Gideon, Samuel, Elijah, Jeremiah, and John the Baptist. The successful turn back because they do not think they need God (or do not need God any longer), and those facing dire circumstances give up on God because they fail to see him in their dire circumstances. We believe the antidotes lie in Humility and Patience. Choosing faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing is only the beginning. We are called not just to start there—but to end with it. 

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