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Scripture
Then Gideon asked [the two kings], “The men you killed…what were they like?” “Like you,” they replied. “They all had the look of a king’s son.” Judges 8:18

Observation
If you were to put all of the heroes of the book of Judges in a lineup, who would you pick as the most likely to be elected king by the people? Would eyes fix on Samson and his biceps? How about Samuel and his insight? Surprisingly the one judge most likely to become king was Gideon the scardeycat. The people mobbed him and offered him a throne. It was a good thing that Gideon declined because he was a one percent short leader. Two kings flattered Gideon and said that had the “look of a king’s son” but he was no king.

What kind of leader almost makes it, but does not quite get there? It is the leader who is 99% pure, but there is just a little something that contaminates his leadership. These are just trace elements that few would notice. But God notices and disqualifies that man from leading.

What was Gideon lacking in his missing 1%?

For starters, he looked like a king but he acted like a terrorist. Those who did not support his cause, he thrashed with thorns, pulled down their public buildings and killed their menfolk. Compare that with King David a few decades later just before he became king. When 200 men would not fight with him, he left them beside the road, went on, fought the battle and then let them share in the spoils when he returned. Gideon didn’t have the magnanimous heart of a true king.

Gideon looked like a king, but he could not clean up his own villains. Two enemy kings needed to be dealt with, but Gideon turned to his boy to do a man’s job. Gideon was a coward who recoiled from dirty jobs. A king is a king because he alone will do what a king must do. A leader must deal with his own issues. Some things a leader cannot delegate and still remain a leader. A true leader deals with his own villains.

Lost of all, Gideon looked like a king, but he was greedy with the public purse. He should have left the gold alone, but instead Gideon asked for a small thing…just an earring from each man. Behind that small corruption was a fear that he would have nothing for the years ahead. Gideon was not a king, therefore, he had no right to taxation. But he taxed the people, and so cursed his future and that of his sons. Greed need not be large. Even the desire for daily financial survival can be greed if there is no trust in God to supply.

What was the crack that let this impurity seep into Gideon’s soul? The door ajar was Gideon’s pride. Gideon looked fearful, but his real issue was pride. He was a self-made man, and for that reason he never felt big enough to get the job done. That fear led to pride to puff himself up bigger than he really was. The fear did not mutate into pride until after the victory was won.

Application
How then can a leader lead if he is one percent short? Most leaders know that in fact they fall far more short of capability than just one percent. We all have many insecurities, especially leaders. The answer is in something we can call not self-confidence but Christ-confidence.

Christ-confidence begins when a leader refuses to pretend to be what he is not, but instead becomes comfortable with honesty about his shortcomings in the presence of God. When a leader is honest with his fears, he is set free with pretending. He is set free to find a new depth of confidence in Christ. The Lord has chosen each of us knowing our inadequacies with x-ray perception. We are inadequate, and yet he chose each of us imperfect as we are. He chose us one percent (or more) short to give himself room to reveal himself through our imperfections.

All leaders fall short in some way. What makes the difference between the good leaders and the bad ones is what they do with their insecurities. Wayne Cordeiro leads a church of 14,000, speaks at the Willow Creek Summit and is a sought after mentor and speaker. I spent seven years with him, close enough to see unguarded moments. I remember in one difficult season, Wayne sat in an ordinary kitchen chair and pressed his confused head against the wall and said, “Phil, I cannot always lead with confidence, so I will serve with confidence.” That is the mark of an effective leader who knows how to handle the missing one percent.

Prayer
Father, even if my life were True Gold at 99.9%, I would still be one tenth of one percent short. There is still much dross in me. Yet you chose me knowing all that is in me, even what I don’t know about myself. So here are my inadequacies. Glorify yourself through them. Help me to brush past those who would want me to lead based on self-confidence. Instead, help me to serve out of confidence in Christ. I don’t want to depend on the “look” of a leader; I want to depend on the Lord. Amen.