The Making of a Leader

Dave left today for a six day trip. It's his fourth ministry trip in four months, but this trip is a little different. He doesn't read this blog, especially when he's out of town, so it's safe for me to "brag" about him here =-) He's in Atlanta this week participating in a Senior Leadership Inititiative two-year program that is invitation-only for a cohort of 24 people selected out of thousands within our ministry. The main objective, among many smaller objectives, is to train emerging leaders to grow their leadership scope 10x their current capacity. Yikes! That sounds exciting, and daunting. While driving Dave down to the airport today, I asked him if the 10-fold growth includes doubling his number of kids. If so we can check that box =-)
Anyway, Dave is six months in to the 24 month program, and things are just starting to ramp up. We're feeling humbled that God would give Dave this opportunity for personal and professional development, including an assigned "coach", a wonderful Christian man who is successful in the business world, who Skypes with Dave every other week.
This afternoon, Dave and I were sitting for coffee while the girls played outside and the boys napped. We were saying how amazing it is that God, in His wisdom, would choose now for Dave to have this additional responsibility on his plate - in the midst of his increased responsibilities in our local and national ministry scope, not to mention the needs of our newly expanded family. But God DID time this all just like this, and we don't know what is just around the corner for us. We don't know how or why He is at work preparing us for whatever lies ahead. All we do know is that God is good, and He is kind, and He gives us so many opportunities to see Him at work all around us - and we're thankful He welcomes us to join Him in His work.