Have you tasted victory, been in a sweet spot of success, and … somehow, lost it?
The secret of successful leaders is that they know how to get back up and go after the victory, again and again.
Everyone I know who has achieved a measure of success has repeatedly experienced loss and failure; the successful ones dare to get back up and go again as many times as necessary to reclaim victory. Let’s unpack how this works.
- You need to know what victory looks like, smells like, tastes like. Remember what you were doing when you tasted victory. Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you working with? What was a day like? Write out your success experience and allow yourself to “go there” … Capture the essence of victory with your words on paper.
- Acknowledge what has changed and describe the gap in your current reality and the victory you once experienced. Can you feel the sting of that loss when you get still? Go ahead and acknowledge the pain, betrayal, dip, mistake, blow from your blind side, devastation, daze…
- Now it’s time for the come-to-Jesus meeting.
Look with me at a favorite biblical leader who tasted the thrill of victory and the devastation of defeat, led with passion and purpose, fought many battles, ran for his life, and is remembered as a man after God’s own heart—David. He was at what appeared to be a pinnacle of victory bringing the ark back with much publicity, involvement of thousands of leaders, in what should have been a glorious day. He was so excited to bring the ark and “it seemed good,” like the perfect thing to do. Then the unthinkable happened when Uzza reached out to steady the ark; he didn’t honor the protocol and God intervened by striking him dead — during the very public display of David’s strategic, yet flawed, leadership skills. Everybody saw it. In that moment, David’s dream died, and he became angry at God.
Has your dream died? Has God killed it? Are you at the end of yourself? For me, it was the season in my life I call the Red Bird Season when I believed God had pulled the plug on my dreams. You have your own story.
There is a time in every life for the come-to-Jesus meeting.
For David, we pick up the story in I Chronicles 13:12b and hear him ask the pivotal question. “How can I ever bring the ark of God to myself?” So David would not move on his dream again until he got the protocol and direction from God. Seems he’d asked everyone but God at that point, even consulting hundreds of men…
There’s much that transpired in the space between the recorded verses of this story. When your dream dies, a part of you dies with it. There is grief, shedding of tears, anger, reckoning, mind-wracking endless conversations with yourself and finally, with God.
For me, God aired the pain of every unanswered question I had in my heart—pulled them out one by one. It’s as though He asked me, “Linda, how about this problem?” These were things I thought I had settled, but there was obviously more work to do in my heart and we weren’t moving forward until we had the meeting. It lasted for days. It was sweet and bittersweet. As the Lord and I dialogued through my different pain points I heard Him say: “Don’t you think I saw that? Don’t you think I heard that? Don’t you think I had you? “.. and over those days etched in my mind forever, every complaint in my heart dissolved. I was aware that I was extremely well loved by God during the death of my dreams.”
And I began to ask how to proceed from this point. I would like to share more of my story with you, you can access this premium content here: http://7m-pact.org/interview/
Linda Fields is an author and founder of 7-MPact Marketplace Ministries at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.
Janet Perez Eckles 
Shawn Akers 
Abby Trivett 
