Godly leaders need at least three key traits to accomplish God’s missions: patience, humility, dependence (doctorate of God). Without these, Moses would not have been able to carry out God’s mission to bring the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 3:10). Often he would have been frustrated, nervous, and distraught with himself, the children of Israel, and Pharaoh; maybe even with God. We will miss the mark when God calls us, unless we apply His doctorate.

Patience

It took ten plagues before God delivered the Israelites. Probably, I would have given up after the third plague. When would you have packed? With a clear vision of God’s calling and a firm understanding that when God calls us, He will equip us to get the job done, we still need patience – patience in dealing with subordinates and colleagues, and patience in waiting for God’s perfect timing.

Patience is one of the three pillars that the spiritual leader needs to build a solid foundation of leadership. Impatience stumbles many people mainly because they do not know how to actively wait on God. Many people think that waiting on the Lord means doing nothing. Each of us, especially godly leaders, must learn to actively wait on the Lord. Here are three ingredients for active waiting:

1. While we wait, we must do everything that we know is relevant to God’s mission. In addition, we must remember and make the guarantees of Jesus and his general ‘will’ that is stated in the Bible. Moses knew that God would deliver the children of Israel (Exodus 3:12), so with every setback, he kept going, doing the next thing God told him to do.

2. While we wait, we must make sure that the conditions exist to listen to God. Do we seek His Kingdom and His righteousness first (Matthew 6:33)? Do we have unconfessed sins in our lives? We must continue to examine our lives and ask God to reveal them (Psalm 139: 23). Unconfessed sin will keep us from hearing God. We need to ask God to show us what is keeping us from hearing Him. What is our little god “g”? Men, look at 1 Peter 3: 7 to see if we have been inconsiderate of our wives. If we have been, our prayers will not be answered.
3. We must pray continually, and as the Lord directs us, fast, while doing points one and two, repeatedly.

King Saul did not wait for Samuel and lost his kingdom (1 Samuel 13: 9-12). King David expected God to become the king of Israel (1 Samuel 26: 8-11).

Isaiah 30:18 (NIV) says:

However, the LORD wants to have mercy on you; stands up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

Modesty

The second stage is humility. We must understand that alone we have no answers. We sure don’t have relevant questions to begin with! We need people. People who help us, people who work with us and people to work with. We must encourage, guide and guide people to do the best they can. Above all, we must let them challenge us. To grow and let Jesus shine in us, we must be willing to learn, be prepared to make mistakes, and be open to accept God’s truth.

One of Peter 5: 6 tells us that we must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God so that He can raise us up in due time.

The godly leader is a servant leader like Jesus the Messiah, who condescended to come to earth and take our sins so that we could inherit eternal life. While dealing with people, Jesus listened, asked questions, encouraged, and showed the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22). Shouldn’t we do the same?

Dependence

Do you have an image of dependence on God? I like what God said to Joshua 3:13:

And it will happen that as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, rest on the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan will be Cut off the waters that descend from the river above, and they will remain as a heap. “

Did you get it? When the soles of the feet rest in the water, the weight of the body is shifted forward and there is no turning back. We must move on without knowing if God’s next action will work out as we think. We must understand that God knows the future, we do not.

After obtaining God’s mission, the godly leader must move on, even when he cannot see the next step and when it seems impossible. With God, everything is possible (Matthew 19:26). The focus of the spiritual leader, therefore, is to lean on Jesus and do what God shows him, always remembering that it is God’s mission, not hers.

God’s mission, His goal, will be clear; It is His “what to do”. His “how to do it” is His plan that will not always be clear. We need to depend on Jesus to show us how to carry out his mission.

Summary

Like Moses, we will encounter roadblocks as we carry out God’s missions. These tasks are part of our sanctification journey designed to draw us closer to Jesus. Roadblocks are important learning stations that we must embrace so that we can flourish and let Jesus shine through us. By rejecting them, we do not learn, we “shine” and we grow, we stagnate or even regress.

Where are you today? Are you working with God’s mission or yours? Have you experienced plagues one through five and are you ready to give up? Remember Moses. He stood firm, he was patient, he showed humility, and he depended on God.

Will you ask God to help you get started on your PhD today?

Copyright (c) 2012, Michel A. Bell