I've worked under a lot of leaders. Officers in the military. Professors in college. Administrators in hospitals. Executives in corporate offices. Some were impressive. A few were great.
None of them shaped me like my dad.
One evening he took me kayaking down the Navasota River. It was supposed to be a three-hour trip. It turned into an all-night adventure, back in the days before GPS cell phones. Quitting wasn't an option. Where would we retreat to? We just had to keep going. Eventually we made it out alive, with a story I'll spare you for now.
It's memories like that one that bring me back to the greatest leader of my life.
He was a pastor. But he was a father before he was a pastor, and that order mattered. I know his flaws. I've seen them up close. And I still trust him, because I watched how he lived when the pulpit was empty and the house was quiet.
I've been thinking about him this week.
When the headlines get loud
A lot of leaders I know are rattled right now. Some are celebrating. Some are grieving. Either way, a lot of us have let our emotions get tied up in decisions made a long way from our front door.
I understand it. What happens in Washington matters. I vote, and I believe every one of us has an obligation to take part in the process. There is real good and real evil in this world, and staying silent isn't neutral.
But here's what I keep coming back to. World leaders will rise and fall. None of them will ever be my father. World leaders will impress me and disappoint me. None of them will ever be my God.
Scripture says it plainly: God removes kings and sets up kings. Leadership changes at the top are not outside His hands. That isn't a reason to check out. It's a reason to stop being shaken by every turn, and to put our energy where it actually does the most good.
Your influence is strongest at arm's reach
Most of us will never meet the people we argue about online. They are beyond our reach. But the people at our dinner table aren't. The people on our payroll aren't. The kids on our ball team, the folks in our pews, the neighbor who's outside when we pull into the driveway. They're all within arm's reach.
That's where lasting influence lives. Not in the national news, but in the hometown leaders whose names will never trend: the pastor who's been at the same church for twenty years, the business owner who knows every employee's kids, the mother who shapes the next generation one ordinary day at a time.
I've come to believe the things this country needs most won't come from a capitol building. We can complain about taxes, social stances and Social Security, and some of those complaints are fair. But at the end of the day, government won't solve the deepest problems we face. A moral foundation gets rebuilt one home, one business, one congregation at a time, by people who know the folks they lead.
So find your center. Start with God and work out from there. Your family. Your team. Your town. That's your domain, and it's not a small one.
What leading where you are looks like
If you're a father, lead boldly and clearly. Your kids are watching how you handle this week more than what you say about it.
If you're a mother, lead as if it's God's calling on your life, because it is.
If you're a business owner, impart wisdom. Your employees are carrying the same anxiety you are. They need steadiness, not commentary.
If you're a pastor, preach the truth without compromise, and love the people in front of you, including the ones who voted differently than you did.
Don't hate the person across the aisle
This one is harder, and I want to be honest about it.
The struggle we're in isn't really against flesh and blood. It's against the powers and principalities that corrupt a culture. That means the person on the other side isn't the enemy. We can stand firmly against an agenda. We can grieve where someone is headed. But we don't hate them.
That principle holds in Washington, and it holds in the break room. I've seen corporate politics get just as ugly as the national kind. In both places, the leaders worth following are the ones who lead from moral conviction rather than the changing winds of whatever's popular this year. They don't lead with drama or ridicule. They lead with integrity and honor.
Get up
If you've spent the last few days discouraged, angry or just numb, I get it. But don't stay there. On that river, there was nowhere to retreat to. There still isn't. The people counting on you are right there in the boat.
Get up. Get up and lead in the calling God has placed on you. Your effect is far stronger on the people within arm's reach than on anyone you'll ever argue with online. Lead in integrity and honor. Lead on Biblical foundations and with hope. Lead in the role you've been given as if it were a gift from God, because it is.
My dad never made the national news. He didn't need to. He made me.
Check your own foundation first
You can't steady others if you're running on empty yourself. Before you step up for the people around you, it's worth an honest look at how you're actually doing.
The Leader's Health Check is a free, private assessment across seven areas of a leader's life, including Spiritual & Purpose Health and Social & Community Health. It takes about 15 minutes, you get your report the moment you finish, and your results are never shared with anyone.
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