Soul Calm That Buttresses Biblical Leadership

A Psychology

In the title, I use the terminology, “soul calm,” which is peace from God.  I don’t mind calling “soul calm,” psychology, which would mean a psychology behind biblical leadership or pastoring.  “Psychology” comes from the two Greek words, psuche (“soul”) and logos (“word”).  True psychology is God’s word about the soul.  To continue in biblical leadership, the leader needs a “soul calm,” this deep seated peace of soul that will impede him from drastic, knee-jerk reactions.

In biblical leadership, which is true leadership, you pour your life into someone, who very often ejects from the situation after a lengthy investment.  It occurs over and over.  You keep trying with as many people as possible with a very low rate of success.  I understand that a certain definition of success would mean that the faithfulness to do it is truly success.  I agree with that, but you know what I mean.  It’s actually the topic at hand here.  I do believe it is success to faithfully serve with such an end as rejection or ejection.

Strength within the soul keeps from jumping or hopping from one method to another in order to find out what works.  Enduring biblical principles from proper exegesis of scripture undergird biblical leadership.  I keep doing the same thing that concludes with ejection and rejection.  This might seem like one definition of insanity — doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome.

Isaiah and Jesus

God sent Isaiah in Isaiah 6 to a people with hard or calloused hearts that would reject what he said.  That was his calling.  Jesus took up the same mantle, when He referenced Isaiah 6 to take on the same role in Israel (Matthew 13).  The Apostle Paul understood this when in 1 Corinthians 3, he says that God gives the increase.  Furthermore, Paul says that both the one who sows and the one who waters are nothing.  They are irrelevant.

Biblical leadership offers people something most people do not want.  They’ve got to stay calm in their soul.  Let me use a baseball analogy.  A great hitter misses more than two-thirds of the time.  He swings and misses very often, or at least gets bad contact with the ball.  The ratio is worse in ministry.  Okay, I know that God always works even if one doesn’t see the desired outcome.  This is what I’m saying though — calmness of soul comes from resting in Christ, in the truth, and finding contentment in faithful stewardship.

Certainly analogies exist, but still almost nothing is like biblical leadership.  When I say certain analogies, I mean something like a farming analogy, where you must wait for the result.  You do regular, mundane labor knowing that you get something in the end — sowing and reaping.  However, you don’t mainly see the reaping in this lifetime.  Sowing and reaping means you have to wait, but it still doesn’t completely work, because a farmer waits less than a year to get his results.

I can’t see farmers continuing if they saw a harvest about once every twenty years.  That’s a one out of twenty ratio.  From experience, I know that it’s worse than one out of twenty for tangible, visible results in biblical leadership.  Yes, you’ll reap if you faint not, but the reaping is after this lifetime, not during it.  The calm is resting in Jesus and in this knowledge.

Expectations

Everything within you could say, compromise.  People are not going to want to hear this.  Tell the ladies of the church about the woman’s role and maybe you’ve read that in some places they rise and leave the building in protest.  This is just an example.  What does it say to most?  Don’t talk about that subject like that again.  You’re insane if you do (remember the definition of insanity).

Even outside of your organization (the church), you’ll receive criticism.  You get it in the church, outside the church, and even from afar.  They call you a cult.  Sometimes that say you’re a schoolyard bully.  You  must be doing something wrong.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Everyone needs to change, which is part of growth or sanctification, but when is it capitulation, called growth?  A biblical leader must stay in tune with God.  Stay calm, as the British motivation poster says:  “Keep calm and carry on.”  They produced this before World War 2.  Do you think they understood what might come to the British people, so they modified expectations?

I’m not modifying expectations here, but more so presenting biblical ones.  Enjoy biblical Christianity.  Embrace it.  Keep calm and carry on.  This is vital for biblical leadership.  In so many ways, you’ll have wrenches thrown into your gears.  It could become tedious, all the many various ways that circumstances come non-stop.  You’ve got to be at ease with it.  This is where strong theological underpinnings direct you both in your preaching, but also your attitude.

As I write this, I also understand that you can’t settle.  Two ideas, which seem contradictory, are not.  You have holy ambition with low short-term expectations.  Everyone must do a good job; meanwhile, almost everyone does a bad job.  How do you put up with this tension?  This requires a calmness of soul, this settled peace.  Joy comes out of it.  Paul commanded, “Rejoice evermore.”  Jesus said, “Peace I give unto you.”  This is something real that buttresses the biblical leadership God informs in scripture.