God’s Role
God has the central role in transforming and leading you.
It starts with God’s investment. God has more invested in us than we can imagine. Scripture says that we were part of his plan before creation (Ephesians 1:4). Psalm 139 reminds us that God was intimately involved in our creation. Verse 13 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”
But God continues to be intimately involved in our lives beyond our creation. Psalm 139 also tells us that God knows “when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down…Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely” (Psalm 139:2–4). David continues and writes, “Where can I flee from your presence?” (Psalm 139:7) and concludes that wherever he goes, God is there.
God’s initiative is also plainly evident throughout Scripture. God not only initiated through creation, but he continued to initiate through his plan of redemption. John 3:16–17 is the best known summary of God’s initiative: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” His love led to his initiative.
Through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, God’s work has accomplished what we could not and cannot. The first chapter of Ephesians provides a great list of what God has already done for Christ-followers. He has blessed us in the heavenly realms; in love he predestined us for adoption, redeemed us, forgave us, lavished us with the riches of his grace, made known to us the mystery of his will, included us in Christ, and marked us with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. All this is God’s initiative, work and accomplishment.
At this point, we can conclude that God is for us. As Paul argues in Romans 8:31–32, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” God is on our side. His desire is for our good, and he is still actively engaged in that goal. The grace given through salvation is immediately met by grace for sanctification. We know that “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).
God’s grace, his provision and his sanctifying work through the ongoing activity of the Holy Spirit seeks to transform us “into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). As God seeks to form Christ in us (Galatians 4:19), we see more and more of his life expressed through us. The products of God’s transforming work include the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23) as well as spiritual intimacy, godly character, vibrant relationships and contribution through service.
As Cloud and Townsend write in How People Grow, “To grow, we need things that we do not have and cannot provide, and we need to have a source of those things who looks favorably upon us and who does things for us for our own good.”1 God is that source, and he is at work for our own good. While individuals and community do have a key role to play, Cloud and Townsend note that “We do not grow because of ‘will power’ or ‘self-effort’ but because of God’s provision. God offers the help we need (that’s grace) and then we have to respond to that provision.”2
Our Role
While God initiates and provides the core ingredients for change, you and I can’t be passive. We are called to take responsibility to join in partnership with what God is doing and desiring to do in our lives. In God In My Everything, Ken Shigematsu helps to describe and differentiate between God’s role and our role. Ken writes,
The growth of our spiritual lives is primarily God’s work. On our own, we can no more produce the fruit of Christ’s character in our lives than we can squeeze pebbles into diamonds (John 15:5). Yet despite our foibles and failures, God calls us to play a role in our transformation. He invites us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling,” precisely because “it is God who works in [us] to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13–14). Grace, as Dallas Willard observes, is not opposed to effort but to earning. We cannot earn our life with God—it’s a gift. But we are to “make every effort to add to [our] faith goodness...knowledge…and love (2 Peter 15–7).”3
Our contribution to this partnership is highlighted in 1 Timothy 4:7, where Paul admonishes Timothy to “train yourself to be godly.” Paul isn’t calling for the fruitless exercise of personal willpower. Paul also isn’t advocating a solo effort apart from community. He’s calling for Timothy to take personal responsibility for his development and to engage in an intentional systematic approach empowered by God’s grace and with the support of community.
Every Christ-follower and Christian leader needs to take responsibility to partner with God in his or her growth, development and transformation. Taking this role seriously is incredibly important, but we need to take it on by God’s grace and with God’s strength.
Before we move on to exploring eight key practices for leading yourself, it’s critical that you don’t miss the starting place. The starting place is King David’s prayer.
You might expect that David’s resume would produce some swagger, pride and independence. Instead, we find one of the great prayers in Scripture. It’s found in the psalms—twice, in case we might miss it. Here’s the prayer: “But as for me, I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; LORD, do not delay” (Psalm 70:5).
When I read this passage, I see three prerequisites for effectively leading myself. The first is humility. David firmly proclaims that he is not a self-made man. Instead, he is both poor and needy. He’s a man who desperately needs God’s help. The second prerequisite is dependence. David acknowledges that, above all things, God is his help and his deliverer. He chooses to depend on God rather than his own limited strength. The third is trust. David chooses to trust in God. He not only declares God as his help and deliverer, but he trusts in God’s coming provision.
In contrast, it’s very interesting to look at Saul’s posture. His posture is exactly the opposite of David’s. Rather than a posture of humility, Saul exudes entitlement. He believes he should be king no matter what. Rather than dependence, Saul tries to independently maintain his reign by attempting to kill David and by being disobedient to God’s instructions concerning the Amalekites. Rather than trust, fearfulness is the driving force in Saul’s life. This is demonstrated in his paranoia toward David as well as his frantic and at times bizarre attempts to take matters into his own hands.
David’s prayer and posture of humility, dependence and trust are the starting place for getting traction on leading ourselves well. We simply can’t manufacture any significant or lasting change on our own.
As we look at humility as a starting point for personal leadership, it’s interesting to read Jim Collins’ work for his groundbreaking book Good to Great. He reviewed 1,435 Fortune 500 companies and identified just 11 that achieved sustained greatness, with stock returns at least three times the market’s for fifteen years after a major transition period. One common factor for each of these 11 companies was their top leader. Each company had what Collins’ calls a “level 5” leader. One of the two core characteristics of a level 5 leader is deep personal humility. In contrast, Collins’ notes in two-thirds of the comparison companies “the presence of a gargantuan ego that contributed to the demise or continued demise of the company.”4
Though some would see David’s posture of humility as weakness, it’s actually a strength in God’s economy. It invites and depends on God rather than self. It brings freedom rather than a burden that is impossible to carry.
Reflection