Key Verse: Verse 24 - "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
Key Words: O wretched man that I am!
One cannot think of leadership without thinking of Paul. Standing boldly, on the one hand, and proclaiming the truth of God’s Word, and on the other hand, weeping over the nation of Israel.
Great leaders have a quality about them; they know when to be stern and when to weep. They understand their strengths and their weaknesses.
It was on February 12, 1959, the 150th anniversary of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the distinguished poet and historian, Carl Sandburg, was invited to Washington, DC, to speak. Before a joint session of Congress and assembled diplomatic corps, the astute, eloquent student of Lincoln held the attention of everyone as he portrayed a very great leader with very human characteristics. Calling his speech, appropriately, “Man of Steel and Velvet,” Sandburg helped everyone see that a respected leader can be both capable and vulnerable. The mixture may be rare, but when it is there it is truly effective.
Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on earth who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect.
While the war winds howled, he insisted that the Mississippi was one river meant to belong to one country.
While the luck of war wavered and broke and came again, as generals failed and campaigns were lost, he held enough forces together to raise new armies and supply them, until generals were found who made war as victorious war had always been made, with terror, frightfulness, destruction...valor and sacrifice past words of man to tell.
In the mixed shame and blame of the immense wrongs of two crashing civilizations, often with nothing to say, he said nothing, slept not at all, and on occasions he was seen to weep in a way that made weeping appropriate, decent, majestic.
Leaders are people of both steel and velvet.
What to do:
✞ Remember: “If you can put your feet on the desk and look out the window and think without an agenda, you may be the office manager, but you’re not the leader.”
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