Pressure and Perplexity

I was reading through J. Oswald Sanders’ book Spiritual Leadership again this morning, and his words on “pressure and perplexity” really ministered to me. So, I thought I’d share them:

We naively think that the more we grow as Christians, the easier it will be to discern the will of God. But the opposite is often the case. God treats the mature leader as a mature adult, leaving more and more to his or her spiritual discernment and giving fewer bits of tangible guidance than in earlier years. The resulting perplexity adds inevitably to a leader’s pressure.

Hudson Taylor once said how in his younger days, things came so clearly, so quickly to him. “But,” he said, “now as I have gone on, and God has used me more and more, I seem often to be like a man going along in a fog. I do not know what to do.”

Are you praying for your spiritual leader? Are you praying for your pastor? Are you praying for the missionaries you know? Or are you critical of them?

~Greg