Crucial Mistakes We Make When Assessing Our Circumstances

A few years ago, when I went through my toughest season in ministry and experienced some of the deepest sense of failure as a leader, right in the middle of it, I was in a meeting with the Governing Board, talking about some of the challenges of that season. We were going to spend some time praying for our church. But one of our Board members, hearing me assess the situation, bluntly said, “Henry, first thing you’ve got to do is get over your anger.”

One of those crucial mistakes is arrogance born in success.

And he was right. I was angry, and it wasn’t helping anything. In fact, it was hurting everything. 

And my anger was based on my assessment of the situation. My assessment was off because I couldn’t see how my anger was contributing to the problems and I couldn’t see my contribution to the problems I was facing. 

When we face a challenging situation, there are lots of mistakes we can make that, at best, don't do anything to help the situation, and, at worse, will make things worse. 

We’re looking at three of those mistakes this week, illustrated in the story of Gideon found in Judges 6 and 7. 

Avoiding these mistakes when we’re facing challenging situations will get us part of the way to courageously and graciously enduring the situation or correcting the situation in a healthy way.