I’m reading Bruce Wilkinson’s The Dream Giver and thoroughly enjoying it. Our protestant friends know Bruce Wilkinson as the author of the popular The Prayer of Jabez. I love his work and have read the two little books that followed Jabez — Secrets of the Vine: Breaking Through to Abundance and A Life God Rewards: Why Everything You Do Today Matters Forever. A Life God Rewards is the closest thing I’ve seen in the protestant world to our beliefs about the blessings that God has for the faithful.

Anyway, back to The Dream Giver — fantastic book. There is this one paragraph that stood out to me that made me think of my calling as Young Women’s president. When I was called earlier this summer my first thought was, “I have risen to the level of my incompetence.” Anyone who’s been in the Church for very long has felt that way at one time or another. It seems God has a habit of asking us to fulfill callings that stretch our capabilities — in fact — many times He asks us to do things we KNOW we aren’t qualified to do. Why? So we’ll be humble enough to ask for His help and activate His grace in our behalf.

In “The Dream Giver,” I ran into another reason why God repeatedly uses this method in the Church. He’s building leaders:

Bruce Wilkinson talks about having lunch with his friend who is a leadership developer. Wilkson asked, “Based on your research and experience what would you say is the most important secret to developing world-class leaders?”

His friend said, “Well, it’s not a course, a lecture or a book.” When his friend went back to his meal, Wilkinson prompted him to explain. His answer was, “The single best way to develop leaders is to take people out of their safe environment and away from the people they know, and throw them into a new arena they know little about. Way over their head, preferably. In fact, the more demanding their challenges, the more pressure and risk they face, the more likely a dynamic leader will emerge.” (p 117)

Isn’t that the way it is in the Church? Ordinary men asked to be bishops and stake presidents. Ordinary women asked to be Relief Society presidents and Young Women’s presidents. After reading this, I kind of feel excited to see what God can make of me after a season as a Young Women’s president. As inept as I feel, maybe there’s hope for me yet! :)