On Life and Leadership, Oct 2026
Volume 1. No. 5.
The heat of the summer here in Phoenix, Arizona, has finally broken, and these cooler mornings feel like a wonderful gift! I hope, wherever this finds you, that your summer has been restorative, reflective, and fruitful.
October's collection of thoughts, quotes, ideas, and articles touches on themes of leadership, friendship, intelligent design, and suffering & God's mercy, along with a book worth buying, three articles worth reading, and a closing prayer. I hope it proves timely for someone.
“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.”
Worth Sitting With:
On Leadership
“Jim Collins, in his famous book ‘Good to Great’, uncovered that ‘level 5 leaders’ are the best leaders and they are filled with… humility.”
“If you lead long enough, you will lead through an economic downturn, a market disruption, unfulfilled promises, a natural disaster, a bad hire, a betrayal, undeserved criticism, and perhaps even a global pandemic. Some of the challenges we bring upon ourselves, and some are thrust upon us.”
“If a leader's competence is greater than their character, collapse is almost certain.”
“When he [the Apostle Paul] listed his sufferings, including being beaten and shipwrecked, he ended the list with ‘the daily pressure’ he carried for the people he was serving (2 Corinthians 11:28 CSB). He was declaring the internal burden to be heavier than the beatings, the stoning, and being shipwrecked three times.”
“In his popular books, ‘Emotional Intelligence and Primal Leadership’, researcher and author Daniel Goleman wrote that the most effective leaders manage their emotions, genuinely connect with people, offer kindness and empathy, lead with joy and inspiration, and display the master skill of patience.”
“We don’t drift toward holiness and healthy leadership. We drift down the path of destruction, away from holiness and healthy leadership. Left alone, our bodies drift to unhealth, our garages drift into chaos, and our hearts drift to destruction. Left alone, our hearts are ‘prone to wander’ and leave the God we love. All we have to do to drift down the path of destruction is nothing.”
“The cliché ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ is foolish and false. Words can cut deep, and healing can take a long time. Gossip, slander, and malicious talk seem to flow relentlessly out of the mouths of those who are ruined by their anger or insecurities. Their target is often a leader.”
— Eric Geiger, from ‘The Rooted Leader: Seven Rhythms of Leaders Who Bear Fruit That Lasts’
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
On How We Are Made Right with God
The Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 asks, “How are you made right with God?” Here's the answer:
“Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God's commandments, of never having kept any of them, and even though I am still inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me. All I need to do is accept this gift of God with a believing heart.”
— The Heidelberg Catechism, 1563
On Friendship
“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create it). It has no survival value: rather, it is one of those things which gives value to survival.”
— C.S. Lewis, from ‘The Four Loves’
“This world is full of sorrow because it is full of sin. It is a dark place. It is a lonely place. It is a disappointing place. The brightest sunbeam in it is a friend. Friendship halves our troubles and doubles our joys.”
— J.C. Ryle
“‘Bearing’ includes accepting another person's weaknesses and oddities, which are such a trial to our patience, everything that produces friction, conflicts, and collisions among us. To bear the burden of the other person means involvement with the created reality of the other, to accept and affirm it, and, in bearing with it (Galatians 6:2).”
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
On the Case for Intelligent Design
“Author Catherine Bly Cox's faith began when her first daughter was born, and she found that she ‘loved her more than evolution required.’ Perhaps you’ve had this response with parenthood, or in some other aspect of life… Certainly, not everything in the world is beautiful, and the presence of evil is a problem. But the fact that objectively beautiful things exist will always point me to a purposeful Creator. And perhaps even more remarkable is that a purposeful Creator knows—and loves—you and me.”
— Mike Woodruff
On Made in God’s Image
“God made us for his glory. He created us in his own image (Gen. 1:27). We were made to reflect and display him, to be mobile monuments to God's strength and beauty, not to be stationary statues… God made us to image him, reflect him, and display him in this created world. We are meant to live in this creation as God himself would live if he were a creature in the world he made.”
— David Mathis
On Time
“The two to four hours you spend scrolling each day (or 730 to 1,460 hours each year) is more than enough time to write a book, build a business, or get in shape. In the moment, it seems like nothing. That's why it's so dangerous. Your time disappears without you being conscious of it.”
— James Clear, author of Atomic Habits
On Love
Ray Ortlund writes, “There is only one thing more costly than giving our hearts away. And that is not giving our hearts away at all. In his classic work The Four Loves, C. S. Lewis helps us see the alternatives always before us:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
— C.S. Lewis, quoted by Ray Ortlund
On Suffering and God’s Mercy
“The truth is, even when you can't see it or feel it, God's mercy is following you, hedging you in, all the days of your life. You can be sure that grace upon grace will be poured out on these dark and difficult days until something new breaks through the hard ground of this current suffering and light floods the dark places and chases away the terrifying shadows—until all you can see is His goodness and mercy filling your days. So how do you see His goodness when it's hard to see anything good at all? You look for it. You notice the small ways God's grace and mercy are filling your days. That smile from a friend, that soft blanket on your skin, that warm cup of coffee or that tiny flower on your path. Look for God's goodness today. Focus on His mercy. It's never very far away.”
— Jennifer Tucker, from Breath as Prayer
Worth Buying:
‘The Rooted Leader: Seven Rhythms of Leaders Who Bear Fruit That Lasts’
Eric Geiger
The source of this month's leadership quotes above — a fresh read on the rhythms that keep a leader's roots deep enough to bear fruit that lasts.
Worth Reading
Three pieces this month — on choosing joy as a form of wisdom, what it looks like to love people without using them as a means to an end, and a pastor's case against Christian nationalism grounded in religious liberty.
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Ray Ortlund makes the case, from Ecclesiastes, that bold enjoyment of life — not anger or anxious striving — is the wise and deeply biblical response to a disorienting culture.
God Is Offering You Bold Enjoyment of Life →
“What if wise joy is the most underrated strategy for a better future for all of us?”
— Ray Ortlund
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Russell Moore, drawing on Wendell Berry, argues the answer to Christian nationalism isn't less Christianity — it's a faith that refuses to use Jesus as a means to some other end.
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J.D. Greear, writing out of his own church's religious-liberty battle in North Carolina, explains why he doesn't want the government deciding whose Christianity counts — even a government that claims to favor his own.
Why I’m Not a Christian Nationalist →
“Giving the government religious power doesn’t guarantee a Christian government. It merely guarantees a more powerful government.”
— J.D. Greear
Closing Prayer
Lord, help me to live this day, quietly, easily.
To lean upon Thy great strength, trustfully, restfully.
To wait for the unfolding of Thy will, patiently, serenely.
To meet others, peacefully, joyously.
To face tomorrow, confidently, courageously.
— Saint Francis of Assisi
Grace & Peace,
