The core of becoming a leader is hunger. This could be hunger for success, hunger for significance, hunger for change, hunger for the rescue of people in harm’s way. Whatever the nature of the hunger, and there are certainly healthy and unhealthy hungers, hunger is the foundational spark that leads to the influence of others.
It is interesting to me as I observe people growing in leadership that it is always true that their ability to gain influence and have an affect on the conditions around them is always proportional to their passion for the vision. A leader simply cannot stand to leave things as he or she found them. There is a burning feeling that something must be done, accomplished or achieved, and set aright.
It is my personal belief that the proper sources of hunger are God-given. As an interesting point of reflection, author Ravi Zachariasis recently wrote that "Christ’s salvation transforms a person’s hungers." This is extremely interesting to contemplate and understand. Many leaders are perhaps driven by unhealthy hungers: the desire to be pre-eminent, the desire for fame, the desire for wealth and comfort and self-aggrandizement. This hunger can actually lead to good things, as the leader achieves and accomplishes. But this type of hunger is short-lived and can only lead to emptiness in the least and destruction in the greatest. Legitimate, God-given hunger produces a drive that transcends pride of person and establishes itself as a monument to God’s grace. It produces good fruit in the lives of others and fulfills the God-following leader. This is the type of hunger I speak of when I refer to the hunger of a leader.
We should all fight to find our God-given calling, and then stoke the flames of the hunger of that vision as hard as we can. We should feel driven by that inner desire to do what God built us to do while we still have the time. Our days are numbered, but we have been given enough to accomplish what God will lead us to do for his kingdom and glory, in his infinite wisdom and plan.
Don’t waste your life in a comfortable passage of the time you’ve been given. Don’t set yourself up for that chief regret of looking backward over a life filled with blessings but devoid of service to a cause greater than yourself. Find your purpose and calling, and plug in to the true source of healthy hunger. Give yourself to that cause, and do all to the glory of God. As one of my favorite verses states, "Let your light so shine that others will see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven."
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