“Find like-hearted kings living in the same direction. Sign treaties. When they're at war, you’re at war.”
Dan Allender
I was introducing a client (who has become a very good friend) to a ministry leader. It was a beautiful collision of gifting and ability with hope and desire. The three of us were powerfully aligned in many ways.
It is what I imagine a war council must feel like.
Leaning in. Map on table. Our territory was a generation of young people being overwhelmed by a cultural post-Christian tide and some like-hearted kings shoring up their battle plans to re-take some ground.
You might think I am making a bigger deal of a simple breakfast conversation than the situation warrants, but I would argue against that idea.
In the heavens a far greater battle is underway…the hearts of God’s most precious are at stake.
We were simply agreeing with and joining the larger story of what is ongoing.
But the most interesting thing about the breakfast for me was something even more beautiful than all of that. As I was introducing these strangers to one another, my eyes teared and throat tightened. The one I barely know is a really good hearted man fighting for the hearts of young men and women on the most treacherous of battlefields, an American college campus.
The other is a leader of the most rare a variety…a person who truly walks with God. That is a rare thing for anyone, but for a successful business leader to walk with God in all things is approaching the territory of endangered species. Watching him over the last 7 or so years has been one of the most beautiful and disruptive things I have ever experienced.
I am a logician.
A process oriented person.
An A+B=C guy.
Watching someone faithfully move this way and that…outside the bounds of logic or conventional thought…is unnerving.
And it is glorious.
While some would say that he “marches to the beat of a different drummer," I would say that he simply doesn’t move outside the whisper of a still small voice.
He doesn’t merely line up his actions against a static set of do’s, don’ts, tips, and techniques; he tries to lay each step in the path of his Father’s command.
Ask.
Listen.
Act.
Repeat.
“We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
My life is more liberated because of his. While he is a successful business man who produces fabulous returns on investments, the thing I realized during our breakfast is that this isn’t his true objective. He is working toward a KROI, a return on investment for the Kingdom.
I aspire to be that kind of like-hearted king. I want to sign treaties with that kind of man and go to war.
- Who is counseling your biggest decisions?
- Are you marking each step the same way?
- What territory are you fighting for?
- Have you surrounded yourself with like-hearted kings and queens that are hastening you to war?