A lot of resources today are directed towards leaders, potential leaders and wanna be leaders. You have to search high and low for anything on how to be a good follower and yet at least 80% of our population consists of faithful followers.  Following can be a difficult task, but there is no greater challenge, when the stakes our high, and you find yourself in a situation having to trust a leader with decisions that will impact your life. I call this The Trust Test.

The Trust Test is where many followers get stuck. Quite honestly it’s the failing of this test that keeps you and I, organizations, businesses, churches and the like in the exact same place month after month, year after year. Why? Following takes faith. Not blind faith, but bold faith that supports our leaders during the most difficult days of their leadership journey. It may be critical decisions that need to be made, personnel moves that need to be acted upon, or vision that needs to be implemented.

Let me share with you the three different seasons we receive the Trust Test.

1. Your trust will be tested when you are being led out of something. Think Moses. Think mass exodus out of Egypt. Think 40 years in the wilderness. Did the hebrew children pass the test? No. The tendency of followers during this test is to fear the unknown future. Like the Israelites, we want to know how many miles until we get there and what’s on the menu. The temptation during this particular Trust Test is to turn and go back to where we used to be. It’s a result of thinking that our deliverer (leader) has led us to a dead end instead of our destiny. When we are being led out of something we always are going to have to go through something. As was the case with Moses, it seemed as though he had led them to a dead end with the Egyptians in hot pursuit as they came to the shores of the massive Red Sea. Many of us stop at the shores of the impossible only to turn around and miss the miracle. It was at this moment God divided the Red Sea and rolled out the welcome mat in the form of dry ground into their deliverance. In moments when we doubt our leaders ability, we have to trust God’a ability to use the leaders God has called for specific seasons.

2. Your trust will be tested when you are between where you left and where you are going. I eluded to 40 years of wandering in the wilderness above. The temptation when taking this test is to get frustrated with God’s purpose and process for leadership in your life.

 ”And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.” 

I am convinced that God’s leadership processes of difficulty and delay is much different than our leadership saturated culture of personal growth and greatness. God uses the between times in our lives to allow the things that limit us that lie deep in our hearts to surface. Our responsibility is to deal with our junk so we move ahead in our journey. The tendency is to blame our leaders for where we currently are or for not taking us where we want to go.

3. Your trust will be tested when you are being led into something. Just as Moses raised up Joshua to lead God’s people into the promise land, this Trust Test involves trusting God with leadership transition. It asks the question, will I trust God with the new leader He has placed in my life to lead me to where I’ve never been? Joshua led God’s people to  where Moses could not take them. Moses got to see the promise land from a distance, Joshua was destined to enter into the promise land. Leadership transition is the test of understanding that God raises up leaders for different purposes and seasons with different skill sets and capacity to take us to places we could never get to without a transition taking place. Transitions get us into position to receive what God has for us in a specific season.

Whatever the circumstances of your Truth Test are, the question you will have to answer in order to pass the test will be; Do I Trust  God with My Leader or Leaders?