One of the dilemmas that all leaders face is this - the difficulty of being big enough in heart to include into their world those who have leadership abilities or are challenging to them. If you only accept into your world the people who are nice to you, the people you like, the people who personally you feel comfortable with, then you have a small world. God has got a lot of other people he wants to bring into your world, but you've got to have a heart to embrace them and welcome them.
Have you got a heart to do that, or can you only bring in the ones you feel comfortable with? You will stay very small and in your comfort zone, instead of facing the challenges of bringing challenging people around you. We all need people around us who are big, and who have got a greatness in their life to help us. They stir us to get to where God wants us to get.
Finally, we find that David waited patiently for the Lord to promote him. He didn't push himself to get where he wanted to get. He spent seven years in this place called Hebron, from the age of about 30 to 37. He was able to wait for God to fulfil His promises. Most people today are impatient. They want it all, and they want it now. If you take on that mentality, think about how it’s going to affect every part of your life. How do you build good relationships? How do you build a relationship with God? How do you build financial strength and independence? I want it all, and I want it now? You can't with that mentality.
David, he was able to wait patiently for the Lord, and many times in the psalms he was saying: learn to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. He will bring about everything that He has said. You don't have to strive, and struggle, and make it happen. He never had to fight to make himself king. He walked with the Lord, and listened to Him, and God got him there. It's a tremendous thing to be able to be patient.
The Bible tells us: don't be lazy, but be a follower of those who, through faith, trusting God, and through patience, receive the promises of God. Nothing comes quickly in life, but the world will offer you everything quick, and it tries to tempt you with things that are quick. What happens is, if you buy into it, then you actually lose sight of how God builds. He builds slowly, step by step, and He builds with your whole life in mind, and with the next generation in mind.
When you're young, you want everything, and you want it all now, but if you can actually stand against that, and wait patiently, and persevere slowly and steadily towards your goals, you will outrun everyone. The race does not go to the most gifted. Look around you; maybe you feel insecure? This one is so gifted, and that one's so gifted, but at the end of the day, it won't be the gifted ones, necessarily, that shine, and rise to the top of the pile. It will be the ones who had a plan, who trusted the Lord, and patiently and persistently worked towards where they wanted to get. Think about that!
Don't buy in to how the current generation thinks. Start to be a leader, by thinking and acting differently. Get the heart of David around you - a passionate love for God; a caring heart for the people around him; a willingness to honor and value people who were helping him, and part of his team; a willingness to impart what he knew to others; a willingness to receive others, who had strengths to add to him; a willingness to wait patiently for God to break through and bring him to where he was supposed to get.