What did you dream of being when you were a child?
My personal fantasy was to sing. I was awed by the 1980's pop singer, their confidence, the way they sounded, their beauty. Singing into my hairbrush to my cassette tapes of Cyndi Lauper and Madonna was as close as I could get.
What was your childhood fantasy? What does it reveal about your secret inmost desires?
I recently attended the City to City Asia Pacific Conference 2021, what stood out to me the most was a session by Pastor Akshay Rajkumar, who spoke on the "Inward life of the leader". I was tired, attending as many of the zoom sessions as I could while juggling my work tasks, but even arriving 10 minutes late to his session I was struck by his arresting statement:
Your fantasies reveal your vainglorious desires
While Akshay's own personal fantasy revealed his desire to be appreciated by his parents, mine was about appearing good in front of many other people. It struck me that he was right, this desire to be appreciated and approved was a vainglorious desire.
Well, there is nothing wrong with wanting people to approve of me, of course. It's only a fantasy. However, fantasy when full grown, would be sin. Hang on, what do my innermost fantasies have to do with leadership and ministry?
Akshay went on to say:
Sin wants to kill you, sin wants to kill your marriage, sin wants to kill your kids, sin wants to destroy your future
Akshay admitted that when he got married, he became aware that he had an anger problem. Admitting this anger problem stopped it being able to devour him, to undermine his ministry, to wreck his marriage. When we face up to and repent of our secrets sins, they no longer have the power to corrupt us.
The act of admitting our own sin is itself a powerful leadership quality. The act of confessing our sin and repenting of it is the heart of genuine vulnerability. We associate leadership with strength, with power, but what if Jesus wants leaders who are humble and gentle?
What is vulnerability? Faux vulnerability makes a mockery of true humility. We have all seen abusers and manipulators make a show of vulnerability or contrition when they are caught out for their secret sins. In a sense, our society applauds authenticity as the new vulnerability. Authenticity is not genuine vulnerability, but a cultivated persona, a performance.
Vulnerability is not a performance of contrition, but the act of losing control. Vulnerability is risking something we value and truly letting go of it.
True leadership does not concern itself with its outward appearance, but sacrifices its own ends for unity. A leader's greatest goal, if they follow Jesus, is unity in the truth.
So take some time today and think about the fantasies you keep to yourself, the ones that reveal your innermost desires. Then give them up and let God replace them with submission to Christ and a desire to bless those that you are leading.
The content of this blog has been drawn from Akshay Rajkumar's session from the 2021 City to City Pacific Conference. Akshay is a pastor at Redeemer Church in South Delhi
Photo by Stéphan Valentin on Unsplash
