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The Key Issue in God's Preparation of a Leader

The Key Issue in God’s Preparation of a Leader

Dear Friends,

Last night I was reading Robert Clinton’s classic, The Making of a Leader. He shared an insight that flew off the page and lodged a grace-shaped bullet into my heart. It’s simple, but much easier to hear than to apply.

He said that perhaps the key issue in God’s preparation of a leader is submission. If I want to be fruitful for God in the future, I must be willing to submit to God’s purposes for me right now. Of course that’s easy if it appears God’s purposes are in sync with what I want. But the real test of submission comes when God purposes something for me that I don’t desire.

I need to chew on this and swallow it, even when it’s tough to swallow. It’s a lesson we see repeated continually throughout the Scriptures—in God’s preparation of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Ruth, David, and the prophets, all of them were put in situations they did not desire in order to become the people God desired them to be.

To help us cultivate an attitude of submission to God in all things, the great South African Christian Andrew Murray says we must continually renew this four-fold affirmation of faith:

1. He brought me here. It’s by his will I am in this straight (i.e. narrow and difficult) place. In that fact I will rest.


2. He will keep me here in His love and give me grace to behave as His child.


3. Then He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends for me to learn.


4. In His good time, He will bring me out again—how and when He knows.


So let me say: I am (a) Here by God’s appointment. (b) In His keeping. (c ) Under His training. (d) For His time.


God never asks us to do something for Him that He has not first done for us, or that He is not willing to do in us. The God who requires submission is the same God who models submission, “becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8).

So looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, let us say with Him: “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Learning to follow Jesus with you,

David Sunday