The Deliberation Room

Being a leader is hard. Perhaps one of the toughest parts about being a leader is making decisions. When you are a leader your decisions don’t just impact yourself, but everyone you are leading. There is a lot of pressure to make the right decision and one that makes everyone happy, safe, healthy, and is beneficial. Sometimes as a leader you have to make a decision that you know is best but others cannot see that perspective. Other times you have no idea what is best, but you still have to make a choice and hope it works out for the good. And then of course there are times as leader that you make choices that are wrong and you have to humble yourself, admit to your failures and learn from your mistakes.

It seems like this year has been marked by making tough decisions. They are the kind that you ache over and weep about. They are the kind that you enter into the deliberation room with your co-leaders and stay there for hours, perhaps missing meals. As a leader you stay up at night thinking about these decisions you have to make. You seek counsel from others you respect and you press deep into hearing God’s voice, listening for direction.

This year we’ve had to make decisions both as a leadership team and personally that have tested our character and discernment. They are the tough decisions, such as what to do when a student finds out she is pregnant. Or if we should send a student home from Africa because she is having stomach pains. Even if we should cancel our trip to Lesotho only 12 hours before we are supposed to leave because we simply don’t have a peace about going. Another tough decision was what to do when our Visa extension got denied and we were almost forced to leave the country. These are the type of tough decisions we’ve had to make this year. And I can assure you there have been many more.

A friend of ours approached us in church on Sunday and said, “Welcome back from Lesotho.” We hung our heads as we had to say, “We never went.” We explained that although we were packed, prepared and pumped to go, we simply didn’t have a peace about going. There were a few other factors that led us to cancel our trip, such as a few sick students and a flat tire, but besides that we simply didn’t have a peace. His response to us was, “At least you are still asking (God).”

I got to thinking about that and how as leaders we make plans and decisions but we forget to ask the Lord for direction or confirmation. Perhaps we are afraid that if God says something different than what we had planned we will look like failures. Or worse yet, we will have no plans to act upon. But through my friend’s comment I was reminded of Proverbs 19:21 that says, “You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.”

The one thing that we have relied upon as we’ve had to make all these tough decisions is a peace that God’s purpose will prosper. We know we’ve come to a final decision when we can feel a sense of peace in our hearts. I’ve had to learn this year that when I make decisions I must follow a voice of peace even if the decision doesn’t seem like the best choice. Scripture speaks to this in Phillippians 4:7, “Don’t worry about anything; instead pray about everything…If you do this, you will experience God’s peace which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand.” So when we make decisions we must remember to ask God first and then He will give us the peace we need to decide.

Please pray for us as we continue to lead this team and make a lot of hard decisions. As I get older, I find I am praying for wisdom more than anything else, so please pray for wisdom as we finish out this semester with our team. Wisdom is far more precious than anything else we could ask for, so please pray that we are granted supernatural wisdom each time we enter into the deliberation room.

I’m proud of our leadership team that has had to make all these tough decisions this year. Way to go team!