The Third Question Most Leaders Are Too Afraid to Ask

PEOPLE ASK:

• "What is my purpose in life?"
• "Why do good leaders go bad?"
• "Why do religious leaders abuse their power?"
• "How do I know if I'm called — or just ambitious?"
• "How do you lead with integrity in a broken system?"

THE OPEN QUESTION

What kind of power do you most want — and what does your fear of what you're afraid to lose say about you?

SECTION ONE: The Three Questions Beneath Every Life

There are three questions, and the core answers that determine one's life:

1. Identity: Who am I?
2. Calling: Why am I here?
3. Integrity: What breaks me?

In my own experience as a pastor for over three decades, most leaders have snap-answers to the first two and have never seriously asked the third. So, when the third question arrives — and it always arrives — they are caught entirely without an answer. This is the moment when the heart is truly tested by its contents.

Solomon gave us the bottom line of this whole framework a thousand years before Christ:

“Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” (Prov. 4:23 NKJV)

The Hebrew word translated keep in Proverbs 4:23 is נָצַר (nāṣar). It is a verb meaning to guard, to observe, to preserve, to hide, and to set a sentry around. The word refers to maintaining things entrusted to you, especially keeping the truths of God active in both your actions and mind (Ps. 119:100, 115).

This is the exact same word God used when He commissioned Adam to "keep" the Garden in Genesis 2:15. It is the vocabulary of a watchman on an ancient city wall, a shepherd at the gate, a perimeter set with guards who do not sleep.

The most important boundary you will ever guard is not around your house. It is around your heart.

Every external collapse begins as an unguarded interior. Every leader who blew apart in public, every ministry that fractured into headlines, every marriage that imploded after thirty years — every single one of them began long before the headline hit the press. The fall is just the moment the public finally sees what has already happened in the dark secrets of the heart.

The Living Lens

Throughout the CRUX curriculum, we have been speaking about Christologically Discerned Focalisation (CDF)—three academic words that name something deceptively simple. CDF is the continual reorientation of how we see, by encounter with the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. It is not a doctrine or a list of theological truths to memorize. It is a posture to inhabit.

In this module, we apply it for the first time not to a question about the culture, but to a question about the self.

Before CDF can correct your view of the world around you, it must correct your view of the person in the mirror. Most of what we call a “leadership crisis” in our generation is, at root, a focalisation crisis. The leader sees himself through the wrong lens. And from a wrong seeing, a wrongdoing inevitably follows.

There is an old principle in systems thinking that James Clear popularized in his work on habits: you do not rise to the level of your goals; you fall to the level of your habits and systems. Translate that into the language of the soul, and it reads:

You do not rise to the level of your ambition. You fall to the level of your heart's interior.

Everything else in leadership is decoration on that one wall. This module is about that wall.

Two Kings at a Cave

Open your Bible to 1 Samuel 24 for a moment. Israel is torn into deep division. Saul, the first anointed king, is hunting David through the wilderness of En Gedi with three thousand chosen men. David — anointed years earlier by Samuel, married into the royal family by Saul’s own decree, hailed in the streets as the slayer of giants — has been reduced to hiding in caves with four hundred outcasts. The most successful young leader in the kingdom has become its most wanted fugitive.

Then the strangest moment in ancient Near Eastern literature occurs. Saul, exhausted from the chase, steps into a cave to attend to himself — the exact same cave, deep at the back of which David and his men are crouched in the pitch dark. The sword of justice has been placed quite literally in David’s hand.

And David refused to take it.

“The Lord judge between you and me, and the Lord avenge me on you. But my hand shall not be against you.” (1 Sam. 24:12 NKJV)

Notice what David had every public reason to do. He had been promised the throne. He had been hunted unjustly. He had married into the royal family. He had the prophetic word from Samuel, the gifting, the loyalty of his men, and now the perfect opportunity — handed to him, gift-wrapped, in the dark.

And yet, with Saul vulnerable and the moment ripe, David refused to take the kingdom by force. He masterfully cut the corner of Saul’s robe, but then his conscience did not even allow him to claim that. He waited fifteen more years for the kingdom that had already been promised.

Why? Same Spirit, Same Anointing, Different Interior

Two men. Same nation. Same religion. Same God. Same Holy Torah. Same external opportunity. Why does one collapse and the other endure?

• It is not gifting — both were profoundly gifted.
• It is not anointing — both were anointed by Samuel himself.
• It is not opportunity — both had more than enough.

The difference is the interior of the heart.

Saul’s sense of self, although he was naturally outstanding ("a choice young man, and a goodly... from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people" - 1 Sam 9:2), hid a deep, inner secret insecurity ("Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel..." - 1 Sam 9:21). On the day of his public coronation as king, he was found literally hidden among the equipment (1 Sam 10:21-22).

Because he did not accept the identity God gave him, he spent his reign desperately seeking the favor and support of the people. He did the most unbecoming deeds just to keep face and impress his men out of fear that they would abandon him. He eventually even commissioned the death of his own son in an irrational decision to save face. He didn't realize he had already lost the plot.

Later, Samuel would rebuke him openly: "When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel?" (1 Sam 15:17). Saul eventually acknowledged his real baseline flaw: "I have sinned... because I feared the people and obeyed their voice." (1 Samuel 15:24)

David’s sense of self, by contrast, was assembled out of who God had said he was on the back side of the desert, when no one was watching him keep his father’s sheep. So, when the throne was withheld for fifteen long years, he could afford to wait. He was already the King in his heart; the crown would only later confirm what God had already sealed.

Saul lost his identity the day he gained his crown. David held his identity through every season in which the crown was withheld.

This is the difference between a borrowed identity and a given one. Between an identity that is talked into existence by the applause of the crowd, and an identity that is spoken into existence by the voice of God. One can be retracted at any moment by anyone in the room. The other is sealed in heaven before you ever step onto a stage.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” (Jer. 1:5 NKJV)

Hold that ancient story in one hand. In the other hand, hold this question: where does your sense of yourself actually come from? From whom sees you, what you produce, what you have survived, what you can do for people, or the photographs on your wall? Or from a Word spoken over you before any of that began?

You cannot lead from an identity you do not yet possess. You will lead from the identity you actually inhabit — and so will every leader who comes after you.

Are you ready to test the structural integrity of your own heart? Build the internal armor your calling requires. 👉Enroll in CRUX Module 5 on Patreon

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do well-meaning religious or spiritual leaders abuse their power?

Spiritual leaders generally fall or abuse power because they focus heavily on their public calling while leaving their interior hearts completely unguarded. Every public collapse is preceded by an unguarded interior. When leaders use their platforms or authority to satisfy deep, unhealed personal insecurities rather than relying on a given identity from God, they become captive to self-preservation and control, leading to systemic manipulation.

What is the difference between personal ambition and a true spiritual calling?

Personal ambition relies on a borrowed identity constructed from the external applause of crowds, performance metrics, and titles. It constantly fears losing status and takes shortcuts to protect its platform—much like King Saul. A true spiritual calling is rooted in a God-given identity settled in secret before God long before a public stage is ever stepped on. True calling can afford to wait on God's timing because it does not need a crown to know who it is.

What does the Hebrew word "Nāṣar" mean in relation to emotional and spiritual boundaries?

In Proverbs 4:23, the word "keep" is the Hebrew verb נָצַר (nāṣar), which means to guard, set a sentry over, hide, or preserve. It is the active, aggressive vocabulary of a watchman on an ancient stone wall or a shepherd protecting a gate. It dictates that your heart's interior must be actively defended against compromise and hidden insecurity because any moral or structural breakdown begins inside before it manifests as a public crisis.

How can someone lead with absolute integrity inside a broken institutional system?

Leading with integrity within a broken system requires practicing Christologically Discerned Focalisation (CDF). This means choosing to view yourself, your power, and your choices through the self-emptying, sacrificial lens of Jesus Christ rather than the metrics of the system. You must deliberately reject the system's push toward self-glorification, maintain absolute transparency, and ensure that your identity is completely uncoupled from your title or institutional rank.

How does unhealed past insecurity manifest in leadership positions?

As seen in the life of King Saul, unhealed interior insecurity creates a profound fear of rejection. Even if a leader is exceptionally gifted, an unexamined heart will cause them to act out of anxiety, obsess over human approval, make irrational decisions to save face, and treat qualified peers as structural threats. They prioritize managing their public image over guarding their personal walk, causing their leadership to eventually fracture under pressure.