{"id":746,"date":"2013-06-27T10:52:36","date_gmt":"2013-06-27T16:52:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickduffel.com\/?p=746"},"modified":"2013-06-27T10:52:36","modified_gmt":"2013-06-27T16:52:36","slug":"fearful-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/?p=746","title":{"rendered":"Fearful Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<body><p><\/p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/1078872_44288931-1.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-747\" alt=\"1078872_44288931\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nickduffel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/1078872_44288931-1.jpg?resize=300%2C215\" width=\"300\" height=\"215\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/a>\n<blockquote><p>I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.<\/p>\n<p>-Nelson Mandela<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"line-height:1.5;font-style:inherit;\">\u201cFearless leader.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height:1.5;font-style:inherit;\">You\u2019ve likely heard the phrase before.\u00a0 But are you familiar with the \u201cfearful leader?\u201d\u00a0 I recently returned from a short-term mission trip to Haiti with 27 other committed, amazing individuals.\u00a0 They looked to me to lead them through the culture shock, the hard days, and the unique challenges of ministering in a different culture.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height:1.5;font-style:inherit;\">Did I feel tremendously blessed to lead this team?\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 Were all the logistics of the trip adequately planned?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Was I still scared to death?\u00a0 You better believe it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Preaching in a church building filled to capacity with poverty-stricken, but expectant, people. <em>(God, what do I say to them?)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Looking at the huge, crushing, desperate crowd of hurting men, women, and children who showed up for our medical clinics in remote villages. \u00a0<em>(God, how will we ever help them all?)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Feeling so tired and knowing that we had still had a few days left to go. <em>(God, where will I get the strength?)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Facing situation after difficult situation presented by the heat, flooding rains, and shaky infrastructure of Haiti.\u00a0 <em>(God, what should we do now?)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I was the \u201cfearful leader\u201d of the team.\u00a0 As strange as it sounds, I learned the value of leading with a healthy dose of fear.<\/p>\n<p>I suppose my fear could have paralyzed me.\u00a0 It could have caused me to hesitate when I need to act, or complain when I should encourage, or retreat when I should lead.\u00a0 Instead, my fear drove me to my knees in prayer and caused me to trust in the Sovereign Lord of Heaven more than I ever have in my life before.\u00a0 God used my fear to teach me humility and reliance on Him.<\/p>\n<p>This team is God\u2019s team, not mine, I realized.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe a better name for a \u201cfearless leader\u201d would be a \u201crisk-free leader\u201d or an \u201cin-denial leader\u201d because to lead on the edge is to be faced with fear.\u00a0 The good news is a leader faced with fear is one that God can use, because a \u201cfearful leader\u201d is a submitted, useful tool in the hands of his Creator.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. -Nelson Mandela \u201cFearless leader.\u201d\u00a0 You\u2019ve likely heard the phrase before.\u00a0 But are you familiar with the \u201cfearful leader?\u201d\u00a0 I recently returned from a&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/?p=746\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Fearful Leader<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[75,84,113,125,148,193],"class_list":["post-746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership-2","tag-fear","tag-god","tag-leaders","tag-missions","tag-quotes","tag-thoughts-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EHHr-c2","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nickduffel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}