The Warrior Leader: Having the Courage to Do What’s Right

Reflection #002

There are days when leadership doesn’t feel like inspiring speeches or strategic planning—it feels like war. Not the kind with swords or soldiers, but the kind fought in your own heart before it’s ever fought in the world. You wake up and face battles no one else sees: doubt, fatigue, insecurity, temptation, the quiet urge to quit. I’ve felt it too. And yet, something in us refuses to surrender—maybe because God put something in you and me that knows we were made not just to survive, but to stand.

Being a warrior doesn’t mean you never feel fear; it means you’ve decided something is more important than fear. C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” I think leadership tests every virtue we claim to have—love, integrity, faith, compassion—until courage becomes their protector. It’s easy to speak about grace until loving someone costs you. It’s easy to admire justice until you’re the one who has to confront what’s wrong.

But here’s the danger: if all you do is fight, you can lose your heart in the process. You can win arguments and lose people. You can defend truth while becoming cruel. That’s why the warrior spirit must always be tied to the heart of Christ—who fought evil without becoming hard, and carried a cross instead of a sword. Jesus didn’t avoid conflict; He walked straight into it with love.

You and I are not called to be peacekeepers; we are called to be peacemakers. There’s a difference. Peacekeepers avoid conflict to keep things calm. Peacemakers walk into conflict to make things whole. And that takes a warrior’s spirit—not to destroy, but to defend; not to dominate, but to deliver.

Still, every warrior needs a place to lay down the armor. If I’m honest, I’ve tried to be strong for too long before realizing God never asked me to fight unaided. David wrote, “The Lord trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle” (Psalm 144:1). That means I don’t fight alone—God shapes the courage, God strengthens the heart, God carries the burden I can’t. You and I don’t fight to earn victory—we fight because victory was already secured.

So if you’re standing in a battle right now—visible or invisible—don’t mistake exhaustion for failure. Courage isn’t loud; sometimes it’s just showing up again. Sometimes it’s a prayer whispered while no one is watching. Sometimes it’s telling God, “I can’t keep fighting like this,” and hearing Him whisper back, “I know. Let Me fight with you.”