Hi, my name is Pete Scazera and I want to welcome you to the Emotionally Healthy Leader

podcast.

Our theme today is the dark night of the soul and in leadership.

The dark night of the soul in leadership.

I meet pastors often who will say to me, what do you do, Pete, when you want to quit? I'm talking about

when we find ourselves in leadership, our world is turned upside down and we find ourselves

in a dark night. Now, that comes through a variety of events or circumstances, anything from a relational breakdown or betrayal,

a shattered dream, something happens in church that is so disillusioning.

We have our own dilemmas personally, whether in our singleness, marriage, or our own walk with God,

that we are just so stuck

or we find ourselves having a crisis happen, whether it's a wayward child or a car accident

or something where we begin to question ourselves in a significant way in God and the church.

And our fate up to this point and the the way we've led, is not working

anymore. We've got more questions than answers. And it's like the foundation of what we've

functioned on and has not working any longer. We don't know where God is and what he's doing,

where he's going and when this is going to be over. And I call it, you know, an emotional

like the spirituality in the first course, we call it the wall. But it's a dark night. It's the dark

night of leadership. And it's very, very difficult. It's interesting because last summer,

Jerry and I spent a week camping in the boundary waters in northern Minnesota. And we were under

the illusion that after this boat dropped us off deep in the boundary waters in northern Minnesota. And we were under the illusion that after this

boat dropped us off deep in the wilderness and we would spend the seven days canoeing, we were

isolated. People couldn't find us. We couldn't find people. And we had a pickup point seven days later.

...