Running the White Flag up the Pole

With my wife’s consent, let me tell you a story. We were sitting on the couch one evening when the conversation turned to travel. This is tricky territory because, while traveling is not at the top of my list of personal values, it so happens that Tamarah’s middle name is Wanderlust. I’m pretty sure if I came home from work today and told Tamarah I received a vision from God that we’re supposed to move to Madagascar, she would have her bags packed within the hour.

On this evening, we were discussing an overseas trip that would likely be a once-in-a-lifetime tour for us. Tamarah got excited at the thought, stood up and walked over to the computer table. Within a minute, she found some ridiculously priced round trip tickets from GSP to The Dream. She turned around from the computer table to face me and said something like, “Those are some crazy prices right there.” I said, “No kidding,” but then dropped it since I don’t make big decisions like that spontaneously.

As I’ve noted in other posts, I have Helper traits and my wife has Leader traits. What that looks like in this instance is I need time to process the opportunity while Tamarah is ready to tap the purchase icon right now. On my account, we waited.

Two or three evenings later, we were sitting on the couch again when the topic of that trip came up. Without saying a word, Tamarah got up to check the status of those ticket prices. With her back to me, I could see the computer screen come to life. The computer is on a table fifteen feet from where I sit, so I cannot see the details. Based on what Tamarah did next, I assume the ticket prices must have doubled or tripled and put the trip out of reach.

She took her little fist and, like a bolt of lightning, gave the computer table a single, solid strike. The crack of thunder that came with it made our napping dog jump and slink off to another room. I can hear Jael say from the cloud of witnesses, “You go, girl!”

I do not want to resent or punish my wife for having Leader traits. As I noted last month, Leaders get a lot of value by moving things along. That’s a strength. Leaders make the world go around. But the weakness, or shadow side of that strength, is that Leaders have problems with varieties of anger. Correspondingly, people with Leader traits have problems with their tongue and patience.  

If that evening of missed travel opportunity had happened, say, twenty years ago, Tamarah would have stayed angry for a day or two. Not so much anger at me but at herself—that she should have trusted her initial instincts to pull the trigger at the sight of those first tickets.  

Now comes the beautiful part. No more than thirty seconds after Tamarah hit the table, still seated with her back to me, her shoulders rose and then, slowly, lowered along with an audible exhale. She then stood up, came over and sat down beside me on the couch. And then in the most contented way said, “I guess the Lord has something else in mind.” And I replied, “I guess so.”

What happened in those few minutes? In counselor-therapy speak, what Tamarah did there is called self-regulating. Self-regulating is a good term and useful. Take a moment, inhale deeply and exhale slowly. Get perspective. Relax the tension. But I also think self-regulating is a low-resolution perspective. There’s far more going on here than getting all philosophical. Que sera, sera.

A high-resolution assessment from a Gospel-relational orientation would call what Tamarah did a moment of practiced surrender—an internal shift of functional trust.

Let me break it down. When I think of all the gifts and talents that work for those with Leader traits—determined, self-sufficient, pain-tolerant, problem-solver, high resilience—those same abilities can also work against them. How? By placing too much confidence and trust in themselves. By taking a situation and working it and working it and working it until something finally works out.

On the surface, that doggedness is impressive. Below the surface, there is often an idol being threatened—like losing status, reputation, or control of the situation or of one’s ability to make something happen. And that sense of losing is interpreted as weakness. No one likes to feel weak, and people with Leader traits are allergic to it. Leaders don’t respect weakness in others, and they despise weakness when it comes knocking on their door.

Except it appears in Christian Scripture that God Almighty seems especially drawn to weakness—not for its own sake but as an indicator of one’s trust. If the watchword for those with Helper traits is courage—courage to step in to the situation, then the watchword for those with Leader traits is surrender—surrender to step down in the situation. And that is going to feel like weakness to a Leader.

Last month I referenced Peter as a case study for leader traits, and I’ll do so again in this case to make the point. In Luke 5, Jesus steps into Peter’s beached fishing boat, asks to be pushed out just a bit, and begins teaching those who are following him. After wrapping up the teaching, Jesus tells Peter and his partners to take the boat out into the deep water and let down their fishing nets. Peter’s reply is revealing:

“Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless, at your word I will let down the net” (5:5, NKJV). Can you hear the internal wrestling match Peter is having between trusting his good name and native abilities, and giving his reputation and the results over to Jesus? We’ve toiled! Caught nothing. We’ve exhausted our expertise! We’ve fished this lake our entire lives! Nevertheless…

That “nevertheless” is what I’m calling surrender. It’s a white flag that will need to be run up the pole of a Leader’s life over and over again. There is, to be sure, an initial surrender when a Leader comes to Jesus for eternal life. But the evidence that has occurred is there is then a recurring surrender as the Leader practices trusting Jesus with the details of one’s life.

Let me say that surrender should not be construed as quitting. Leaders are to hold ambition and contentment in tension—like having goals and holding them loosely. The fundamental lesson is something like the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, trustworthy is the name of the Lord.

All of this gets me thinking of the little church I grew up attending and one of the hymns we would sing. The hymn is entitled, “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.” A line in the chorus goes, “Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, how I’ve proved Him ‘or and ‘or.”  

When Tamarah said to me, “I guess the Lord has something else in mind,” that was just the most recent evidence that she, like Peter long before her, has learned to trust Jesus, not just with her eternal life but with her daily life.

Because surrender is not giving up but letting Jesus in, ‘or and ‘or.