In the film Blackhawk Down, a vehicle filled with wounded Americans comes to a halt in the middle of a hailstorm of Somali bullets. The commanding officer orders a soldier to take the wheel. The soldier protests, “I can’t, I’m shot!”
The officer is unimpressed. “We’re all shot. Get in and drive!”
Leaders keep going, even when combat rages around us and wounds pile up within us. Those halted by trials, who give in to self-pity and retreat into apathy, vanish like sand castles with the evening tide. Those who persevere become light houses on the shores of history. Martin Luther, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., Chuck Colson, and of course Billy Graham, who died last week, the list of leaders who suffered huge defeats and kept going is long and no doubt one of your heroes is on it.
Harold Myra former CEO, and Marshall Shelley, former Vice President of Christianity Today International (which Graham founded), knew Billy well and worked closely with him. Their book, The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham, records many of his trials and how Graham responded.
“I’m no different from you,” said Billy, “I would like to live a life free of problems, free of pain, and free of severe personal discipline. However, I’d had extreme pressures in my life to the point where I’ve wanted to run away from reality … I felt like going to the Cove (the retreat center he founded in North Carolina) and lying down in the cemetery to see how I fit.”
The apostle Paul also knew the wounds of leadership.
“I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” (2 Cor 11:26-28 NIV).
Earlier in that letter Paul revealed his attitude toward suffering: “Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” (2 Cor. 1:9 NIV).
“Mountain tops are for views and inspiration,” wrote Billy, “but fruit is grown in the valleys.”
Leadership, of large organizations or small families, is exercised at a price. Plans run awry, friends fail us, the world wounds us and still the job must get done. As Churchill wrote, “Success is never final, and failure is rarely fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts.”
That was Billy Graham. Right after the comment about getting measured for his grave he said, “God has called me to my responsibilities, and I must be faithful.”
The truth is that at some level we’re all called and we’re all shot. Lead anyway and live for the commendation that all people of God long for: “Well done good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”[1]
[1] Matthew 25:21.
dane skelton 