More than Passion: Lead with a Burden

Leadership is more than having a passion to solve a problem. Leadership is allowing that passion to become a burden.

Why a burden? Because a burden is what keeps you from quitting when the work gets hard.

Passion can fade when the excitement wears off, the opposition comes, or the results take longer than expected. But a God-given burden can keep a leader faithful.

Trust me on this one. There have been many times I wanted to quit. What kept me going wasn't always passion—it was the deep desire to see through the vision God had given me.

Nehemiah is a familiar leadership example, but there is a reason we keep coming back to his story. He gives us a powerful leadership “formula”—and I like formulas.

When Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem's walls were broken down and its gates had been burned, he was heartbroken. And then he did what every leader should do—not just at the beginning of leadership, but continually along the way.

Nehemiah sat down. He wept. He fasted. And he prayed. And he did all of that before he gathered a team or presented a plan.

Prayer moved his broken heart from burden to action. And that's the difference. A God-given burden goes deeper than human passion. It keeps calling us back to why we began.

As you lead, ask God to deepen your burden for the vision He has entrusted to you. Then let Paul's words in Acts 20:24 become your leadership resolve:

“…my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me.”

Passion may get you started. A God-given burden helps you finish the race!