October 5. No Saboteurs Allowed.

One of the many challenges of being a leader is the battle with ourselves. I suspect that each of us have had thousands of human interactions that have shaped us in some way. I like to think that those interactions can create characters in us. In our minds, we can cheer on the underdog, and we can be the underdog.

We can be a hero and we can be the villain. We can have a persona where we can encourage others and we can have the persona of the saboteur that tells ourselves that we are not good enough and that we cannot achieve. But one of the personas is the captain of them all. It is this persona that represents the best of who each of us are.

The captain is the leader, and it helps me to remember that I can replace any of those personas in myself at any time. I believe that you can do that as well. As the captain, we lead our teams, but it might help us to remember that our team members have the same issue of having multiple personas.

That means that a member comes to work on the team and one of those personas can be engaged at any moment. As a leader, how do we collaborate with members and multiple personas? It might help to remember that everyone has a captain in themselves. Everyone can be a better leader when they spend more time being the best of who they can be.

How are you collaborating in a way to encourage yourself and others to be the best of who they can be? Why will we allow the captain of ourselves to be limited any longer? What is the first thing that you can do about it in the next seven days?

As followers of Jesus Christ, we use the phrase being born again. I think that phrase changes how our captain will function in our lives. We read, “Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.” Colossians 3:16 NLT.

How awesome would it be for the message of love and grace to fill each of our personas? If our lives were filled with Christ, the personas that keep us scared and afraid of the hurts of the past would melt away. Our captain persona would gain strength and be more present.

Our generous persona would show up more often. Our actions would change as well. Our minds would spend less time thinking and worrying and be occupied with the actions of doing. Do you have a saboteur persona that is holding back your faith journey? Perhaps the saboteur is focused on building treasure on earth instead of heaven.

Maybe your saboteur is keeping you from attending worship with others because of their hypocrisy or the harm that someone of the church caused you. We all have likely had those moments where the saboteur creeps in and influences us. I believe that we can remove the limits of the personas.

Where can we encourage one another to speak as captain to captain? What is the first thing that you can do about it in the next seven days?

Let us pray, Heavenly Father, we come to you broken in a broken world. Guide us to use the power of love to be in relationship with one another. Encourage each of us to be more of the person that you have designed each of us to be. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen,