discernment – Amancio Rosas

Leadership can sometimes feel like navigating without a clear sense of direction.

We may know where we believe God has called us, but circumstances change. Opportunities disappear. Expectations do not become reality. Life introduces responsibilities we did not anticipate, and suddenly the path toward our calling looks different from the one we originally imagined.

The question then becomes: How do we remain faithful when the direction of our lives requires recalibration?

As I reflected on the leadership of the Judean kings, two ideas stood out to me: our dependence on the Holy Spirit and our willingness to recalibrate when necessary. Together, they have challenged me to think about leadership not simply as what I accomplish, but as what God is doing within me.

Leading From the Inside Out

Hezekiah’s leadership provides an interesting picture of restoration.

His reign involved repairing what had been neglected and restoring what had been lost. One fascinating part of his leadership was the development of Jerusalem’s water system. Water needed to be brought into the city and protected from outside threats.

That physical reality caused me to think about something spiritual.

What sustains us must come from the inside out.

For Christian leaders, our greatest resource cannot simply be our education, experience, personality, talents, or expertise. Those things can certainly be valuable, but they cannot become substitutes for dependence upon God.

As a Pentecostal Christian, this makes me think particularly about dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

Spirit-empowered leadership is not limited to what happens behind a pulpit, during worship, or at an altar. Dependence upon the Spirit should influence our lifestyle, decisions, relationships, priorities, and direction.

It requires continually seeking God and allowing Him to work within us.

The more experience we gain, however, the easier it can become to trust ourselves.

We begin recognizing patterns. We know how to solve certain problems. Education gives us frameworks. Experience gives us confidence. Leadership gives us instincts.

None of those things are inherently wrong.

The danger comes when competence begins replacing dependence.

I want my lifestyle, decision-making, seeking of God, and continued infilling of the Spirit to keep my own strength and expertise from becoming the foundation of everything I do.

Because leadership that begins internally with God will eventually become visible externally through the leader.

When Leadership Loses Its Orientation

The leaders who followed Josiah provide another sobering picture.

A kingdom that had experienced reform eventually entered instability. Leadership deteriorated, circumstances changed rapidly, and Judah moved toward destruction and exile.

Their stories made me think about recalibration.

There is a phenomenon pilots can experience called spatial disorientation. Under certain conditions, their senses can give them an inaccurate perception of the aircraft’s position and movement. What feels correct may not actually correspond with reality.

Life can sometimes feel similar.

We develop expectations about where we should be, what our calling should look like, or how quickly certain things should happen. Then circumstances change.

Suddenly, what we expected and what we are experiencing no longer match.

That is where recalibration becomes necessary.

When Calling Doesn’t Look Like You Expected

I’ve experienced this personally.

At 25, circumstances caused me to question aspects of my calling because my life did not look like what I believed ministry was supposed to look like.

There can be an unspoken assumption in ministry that fulfilling your calling means eventually obtaining a particular position.

Become the pastor.

Get the ministry opportunity.

Receive the title.

Step onto the platform.

When those opportunities don’t materialize according to our expected timeline, it can become easy to wonder whether we misunderstood God.

But as I’ve grown, my understanding of calling has expanded.

Now, at 30, I’m increasingly recognizing that ministry does not begin when someone gives me a ministry position.

Calling can be lived wherever God has presently entrusted influence to me.

That includes the church, but it can also include the workplace.

It includes conversations.

It includes relationships.

It includes how we serve people who may never enter our churches.

Sometimes being missional means recognizing that our current environment isn’t merely something we’re enduring until the “real ministry” arrives.

It may actually be part of the mission field God has entrusted to us right now.

Recalibration Is Not Abandonment

This has changed how I think about redirection.

Recalibrating does not necessarily mean abandoning what God originally placed within us.

Sometimes recalibration is precisely how God brings us back into alignment with the calling.

There is a difference between abandoning a destination and adjusting how we navigate toward it.

That distinction matters because calling can easily become intertwined with personal ambition. We can begin with sincere obedience to God and gradually develop such a specific picture of what obedience is supposed to look like that we struggle when God doesn’t follow our blueprint.

Dependence upon the Holy Spirit challenges that mentality.

If the Spirit is genuinely leading my life, then I must remain willing for God to adjust my expectations, methods, timing, and even opportunities.

The calling belongs to Him before it belongs to me.

Approaching the Next Transition

This becomes especially meaningful as I approach another transition in my life.

Finishing my master’s degree naturally raises questions about what comes next.

Where should I serve?

What opportunities should I pursue?

What should the next stage of ministry and education look like?

Those are important questions, but I am realizing there is an even more important one:

What does God want?

There are things I desire for my future. There are ministry opportunities I would welcome. There are educational and vocational goals I continue to pursue.

But I don’t want desire alone determining direction.

I want prayer to precede movement.

I want dependence upon the Holy Spirit to precede strategy.

And I want enough humility to recalibrate when God’s direction differs from my expectations.

Leadership Begins Within

This connects with something I continue learning about leadership.

We often measure leadership externally: influence, effectiveness, accomplishments, positions, organizations, or the number of people following us.

Scripture continually brings us back inward.

What are we trusting?

Who are we becoming?

What is driving our decisions?

Are we still listening?

Are we still dependent upon God?

Are we willing to change direction when necessary?

Hezekiah’s story reminds me that restoration begins internally before its effects become visible externally. The instability that followed Josiah reminds me how quickly leadership can lose its orientation when its foundation disappears.

Both lead me toward the same conclusion:

Healthy Christian leadership requires both dependence and recalibration.

Dependence keeps God as the source of our strength.

Recalibration keeps us responsive when He adjusts our direction.

Perhaps faithfulness is not always about walking the exact path we imagined when God first called us.

Sometimes faithfulness means trusting Him enough to let Him redraw the route.

And as I continue navigating ministry, education, work, relationships, and whatever comes next, that is the kind of leader I want to become:

Spirit-dependent enough to follow and humble enough to recalibrate.

Starting well is important, but finishing well reveals much about the leader we have become.

This was one of the strongest convictions I walked away with while studying the leadership of the Judean kings. Throughout their stories, a troubling pattern emerges: leaders can begin faithfully, experience success, and even leave a positive legacy, yet gradually lose their dependence on God.

Their stories caused me to think beyond leadership as a position. Leadership includes how we respond to correction, whose voices we allow to influence us, whether we know when to rest, and how intentionally we prepare those coming after us.

Starting Well Is Not Enough

One lesson I learned years ago through preaching and teaching is that introductions and conclusions deserve intentional attention. It is possible to capture people’s attention at the beginning of a message but fail to bring everything together at the end.

Leadership can work the same way.

King Asa began his reign with trust in God, but that trust deteriorated toward the end of his leadership. Fear influenced his decisions, he rejected prophetic correction, and the conclusion of his reign looked considerably different from its beginning.

That challenged me to consider something personally: How do I respond when someone corrects me?

I recently experienced correction from pastoral leadership concerning gestures and behaviors that needed greater explanation. Although the correction was delivered more forcefully than I would have preferred, I recognized that I still had a responsibility to listen. The issue was primarily methodological rather than a rejection of my character or calling.

Leadership requires enough humility to recognize that even small matters deserve consideration.

Perception can turn something seemingly insignificant into something much larger when understanding, accountability, and vulnerability are absent. Sometimes maturity means being willing to listen even when we disagree with someone’s delivery.

The danger is not simply receiving incorrect advice. Sometimes the greater danger is becoming too arrogant to believe we need advice at all.

Who Has Permission to Influence You?

That question became even clearer through my interaction with classmates.

One discussion centered on Rehoboam, whose leadership demonstrates the consequences of listening to the wrong voices. He rejected the wisdom of experienced counselors and instead followed advice that ultimately contributed to the division of the kingdom.

Yet the solution cannot simply be, “Listen to people.”

Leaders must develop discernment.

Seeking counsel is valuable, but Christian leadership requires bringing that counsel before the Lord. Not every voice deserves equal influence, regardless of how confident, familiar, or persuasive that voice may be.

This creates an important tension:

We must remain teachable without becoming directionless.

We need people who can challenge us, correct us, encourage us, and expose our blind spots. At the same time, our ultimate dependence cannot rest upon human voices. Faithfulness to God helps us navigate the noise surrounding leadership.

The stories of Rehoboam and Joash demonstrate this from different directions. Rehoboam rejected wise counsel. Joash flourished under the mentorship of Jehoiada but later departed from faithfulness after that influence was gone.

Together, their lives remind me that mentorship matters, but mentorship must also produce leaders capable of walking faithfully when the mentor is no longer present.

Mentorship Should Build Bridges Between Generations

Another discussion challenged me to think about leadership succession.

Eventually, every leader’s season ends. Someone else will carry the responsibility forward. Therefore, leadership cannot merely concern what I accomplish during my lifetime. I must also consider whom I am preparing to lead after me.

As someone passionate about discipleship, I believe this requires building intentional bridges between generations.

But I also believe mentorship can work in both directions.

Older and more experienced generations possess wisdom that younger leaders desperately need. They have practical experiences, theological journeys, successes, failures, and lessons that cannot simply be downloaded from the internet or learned from a textbook.

At the same time, younger generations possess knowledge and tools that can strengthen those who came before them.

Technology provides a simple example. Churches increasingly use digital systems for registration, communication, social media, events, and ministry administration. Someone who grew up using these tools may navigate them almost instinctively, while another faithful and experienced leader may struggle with them.

Neither generation needs to dismiss the other.

The younger generation can provide new tools while the older generation provides tested wisdom.

Healthy leadership culture creates room for both.

Mentorship, therefore, should not simply be understood as information traveling from old to young. It should become a bridge where wisdom travels forward and innovation travels backward.

Strong Leaders Also Know When to Stop

Leadership development, however, cannot only concern productivity.

King Amaziah’s story challenged me in another area: rest.

His life demonstrates what can happen when dependence upon God’s strength gives way to dependence upon our own. That principle forced me to evaluate the rhythm of my own life.

There are seasons when life simply does not slow down. Responsibilities continue. Work continues. Ministry continues. Relationships require attention. Education requires discipline.

I understand that tension personally. Between working two jobs, serving in ministry, preparing for marriage, and finishing my master’s degree, rest can easily feel like something that interrupts productivity rather than something necessary for healthy leadership.

I have had to rethink that assumption.

I am naturally productive, so even something as simple as taking a nap once made me feel guilty. It felt like wasted time. Over time, however, I have learned that small periods of rest help relieve pressure and allow me to return to my responsibilities with greater clarity.

I am also learning the importance of withdrawing weekly. Adjustments in my work schedule have created more flexibility and given me weekends back, creating an opportunity to establish a more intentional rhythm of rest.

Rest is not the abandonment of responsibility.

It is the recognition that I am not sustained solely by my own strength.

Leadership Begins With Leading Yourself

Perhaps this is where all these lessons intersect.

Leadership is not confined to what happens behind a pulpit, inside an organization, or underneath a title.

Leadership involves how I receive correction.

It involves whose voices I permit to shape me.

It involves whether I can distinguish wise counsel from distracting noise.

It involves whether I am developing people who can eventually lead without me.

And it involves whether I can stop working long enough to remember that God’s kingdom does not depend entirely upon my productivity.

The Judean kings repeatedly demonstrate that yesterday’s faithfulness does not guarantee tomorrow’s faithfulness. Leaders must continually cultivate dependence upon God.

That changes the question from simply, “How do I become successful?”

A better question becomes:

“Who am I becoming while I lead?”

I want to become a leader who listens without surrendering discernment, receives correction without allowing pride to dominate, rests without guilt, learns from those ahead of me, contributes to those who have gone before me, and intentionally prepares those who will come after me.

Starting well matters.

But ultimately, I want to lead in such a way that when the conclusion is written, faithfulness is still part of the story.

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