Leading with Hope in a Despairing World* By R. Scott Rodin

Everything Changes When Leaders Bring Hope

People look to their leaders for hope. There may be components of leadership where a leader may benefit from allowing others to see their weaknesses. Hope is not one of them! When leaders convey a loss of hope, the cultural impact is devastating.

Where, however, does hope come from when we face overwhelming challenges? We must face budget shortfalls, personnel conflicts, a decline in confidence, and a cultural feeling of distrust and discouragement. How do we convey genuine hope? We do it when it seems like whatever we try, or however much progress we make, is enough.

Let me offer the first of two axioms I believe are true for every leader. This may sound preposterous, but hear me out.

You Have Enough!

Whatever you have right now is enough.

Enough for what? To carry out everything that God has put on your heart for you, your people, and your ministry. Do you have enough resources? In short, enough to fulfill your mission to the glory of God?

How can I make such an audacious claim? Answer these two simple questions:

1) Do I truly believe that everything I have for life, work, and ministry is provided to me from the hands of a gracious, abundant God?

If yes, then,

2) Do I believe that God is absolutely faithful?

If you say yes to these two questions, then how can you conclude that what you have right now is not enough?

The only way that is possible is if God has come up short. Or perhaps he is not as faithful as we thought. He let us down and did not fulfill his promises. Of course, we can’t believe this. So where does that leave us?

God is Enough

It leaves us believing that what God has provided is enough because he is enough. It leaves us with the calling to be faithful stewards. We become faithful to all that God has provided for us. We embrace the responsibility and privilege of responding to what he has provided with thankfulness. Those are the requirements of steward leaders. When was the last time you looked at your budget and fell to your knees? Did you thank God for every dollar He provided for you? How often are our board meetings dominated by prayers of thanksgiving and praise? Are they full of anxiety over all that we don’t have? If we are to be leaders of hope, it begins with hearts that are genuinely grateful for everything God provides. But beyond that, it begins with believing that because he has provided it, it is enough.

Gratitude Leads Us to Stewardship

Instead of perpetually asking God for more. What if we started by asking the Holy Spirit to guide us into faithfulness? How does seeking to be effective stewards of everything God has already provided change us? Perhaps the reason we believe we don’t have enough is that we’re not stewarding well what God has already given us. If we are not faithful stewards of the good things God has provided us today, on what basis do we dare ask him for even more?

This dual attitude of deep gratitude for what we have and a heart to steward it faithfully leads us to a place perhaps many of us have seldom been or have not experienced for a good long time. It is called holy contentment. It’s that deep-seated sense that you are where God wants you to be, He has given you all that you need to do the work he’s called you to do. You know he will walk with you day by day to help you steward it faithfully for the advancement of his Kingdom and his own glory. Deep, holy contentment—that’s the starting place for every steward leader if we are to be sources of hope in our organizations.

Contentment gets a bad rap in Christian circles. On one side, it is often associated with complacency, sitting back and doing nothing, and just waiting for God to do the work. Nothing could be further from the truth. The other side is believing that contentment is in opposition to a desire to grow your ministry, expand your impact, and advance the Kingdom. This, too, is a great fallacy. To address both, here’s my second axiom.

The Power of Contentment

God does his greatest Kingdom work through the hearts of leaders who are already deeply content in him.

Holy contentment is the foundation upon which God builds great ministries, advances great causes, and blesses amazing churches. Why would God not want to overwhelmingly bless leaders who have a heart of gratefulness for what they have, steward it well, and place themselves in a position to be used by God for whatever purposes God may have for them?

What holy contentment does confront is the idea that God is only happy with us when we do more. It challenges a scarcity mindset that says no matter what we have, it’s never enough, and it confronts our own kingdom-building tendencies when our desired growth for our ministry has more to do with our identity and egos than a true leading of the Holy Spirit.

Cultivating a heart of deep contentment has an amazing effect on our understanding of both our present and our future. If God has provided all we need today, if he is faithful and abundant and never lets us go without, then we also trust he will do the same for us tomorrow, next week, and next year. For that reason, deep contentment is the rich soil out of which hope flourishes.

Real Hope!

This is real hope for us, for today, for this very moment. While an aspect of hope is anticipating all that God will do for us in the future, we are also called to a living, present hope. Our hope is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is present, living, and acting in and through us every day. That includes this day!

Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross were not a promise of some future state of paradise, but a present reality that came crashing into the scene of horrific torture and pain: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Not tomorrow, or when we die, but now, today, at this moment.

To be in the presence of Jesus is paradise. To hope in Jesus is to live with him and he with us. The question is whether that kind of present-day, in-the-moment hope is enough for you and me. A more pointed way to ask it is this, “Is being with Jesus…enough?”

The Myth of More

The world (and too many in the Kingdom) tells us that success only comes when you have more, accomplish more, and experience more. Scarcity breeds a relentless pursuit of all that we will never fully attain, leaving us breathless, joyless, and defeated. As steward leaders, we must travel a very different path. Ours is a journey of hope that shines a beacon into the darkness that surrounds us. Let’s be people who bear witness to the world that Jesus is our only hope, and as that hope, he is always enough. Let’s be people who are joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer (Romans 12:12), people who hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).

King David reminds us that “the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love” (Psalm 33:18). He proclaims, “I will wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope” (Psalm 130:5). This week, pray for the Holy Spirit to overwhelm your spirit with the truth that Jesus is our hope, he is all we need, and in his presence, regardless of what is happening in the world around us, we have enough.

*This blog contains excerpts from Scott’s latest book, “Enough: Finding Deep Contentment in an Anxious and Fearful World.” Available for pre-sales at www.kingdomlifepublishing.com.

R. Scott Rodin is the Senior Consultant/Chief Strategy Officer for The Focus Group. Over the past thirty-eight years, Scott Rodin has helped hundreds of organizations enhance their effectiveness in leadership, fundraising, strategic planning, and board development. His books and articles are available in over twenty languages, and he has taught and consulted with ministries across five continents. Scott also serves as a Senior Fellow of the Association of Biblical Higher Education and as board chair for ChinaSource.