The Slingshot
God draws you back to launch you forward. I didn’t understand that for thirteen years.
Down and Dirty Devotion — Grace, Gratitude, and a Little Grit
A slingshot only works one way. You pull back. The stone goes nowhere until tension loads against it — the rubber stretched tight, the rock held still, everything in your arm screaming forward while your hand drags the opposite direction.
The backward pull isn’t the delay before the launch.
The backward pull is the launch.
I didn’t know that for thirteen years.
Thirteen years in a small mission. I thought it was where I’d landed. I didn’t know it was where God was loading the stone. I knew so little then — about leadership, about Christian leadership, about what it actually costs to shepherd people.
So I paced.
I prayed for God’s providence in the dark, lost whole nights to concern and to my own ignorance, certain that nothing but His hand was going to cure how little I understood.
I remember the excitement of victory in those years.
I remember far more of the days and nights of desperation spent on my knees, drawn backward, not knowing I was being aimed.
David was not just a shepherd. He was a worshipper.
David knew long nights of tough prayers and worship before he ever faced the giant. Anointed in a back room, then sent right back out to the sheep like nothing happened. Hidden. Held. Drawn back. Then God sent him — and a shepherd’s stone dropped a giant the whole army feared.
I don’t know about you, but I think about David watching over sheep by himself, his thoughts and prayers to God. Sometimes that sounds simpler.
As an Executive Director, you have meetings, noise, and disappointment. Frustration can feel like our only meal when you are striving to make things better for the people you serve, your staff, and community.
One Step forward and five back.
Joseph spent years looking like a man going backward — sold, framed, forgotten — and every inch of that descent was God loading the stone. In the Bible and in history, there is a time of preparation. We see it as a lack of optimal performance. God sees it as us learning to lean on Him.
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.” — Genesis 50:20
God drawing back the slingshot was never the punishment.
It was the aim. It was God inviting us to rely on him and his timing.
Jesus said it plainest:
“Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” — John 12:24
Burial looks like the end of the story.
It’s actually the planting.
Descent before ascent.
Down before up. Back before forward.
The danger isn’t the pullback.
Don’t quit early. God has a way of launching and surprising us. One day, you will be talking and realize that the future has arrived.
For years, I wondered what it would be like to be a million-dollar mission. I prayed for God to prosper us more than the $350k in revenue we received over decades (so my treasurer reminded me at every board meeting).
Then one day, driving to work, I realized we were a million-dollar mission. That is when I knew I needed to act, pray, and rely on God, and that the future would be the present.
So don’t quit. Expect the most from God.
Look at King Jehoash. Elisha told him to strike the ground with arrows. He struck three times and stopped. The prophet was furious — five times, six times, and you’d have finished Aram for good.
But he stopped too soon. The striking felt pointless, so he let go before God was done drawing him back (2 Kings 13:18-19).
That’s the warning hidden inside the promise. The danger was never the pullback. The danger is letting go early — settling for three when God was loading you for six.
I almost didn’t see it.
From inside those thirteen years, the prayer and the pacing and the not-knowing felt like a holding pattern, not a slingshot. But the launch came.
Bold Leading is my tentmaking now — my way of giving back to the people still learning, still leading in the dark the way I was. Being the VP of Men’s Programs during the day is my ministry.
None of it would preach if I hadn’t first been the man pacing the mission floor, ignorant but praying.
The thirteen years weren’t the wait before the work. They were the draw that sent the stone. God was shaping me.
In our lives, there is a rock that will slay every giant.
That rock is Jesus Christ.
When we rely on Him, we can slay giants.
If you’re in the pullback right now
The small post. The obscure season. The years that feel like they’re curing nothing but your patience.
Don’t read it as God forgetting you. Read it as God aiming at you.
“Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” — Habakkuk 2:3
Don’t let go early. The further back God draws you, the further forward He intends to send you.
GRIT: The field wasn’t obscurity. It was preparation for launch.
Praying to the Giant Slayer.
Father, thank you for your providence. What the world views as obscure, you see as hidden. What others see as forgotten. You see as forged by fire. Thank you for shaping me to fly. You are shaping me to be a giant killer.
For the one reading this in their own small field right now — tired, hidden, wondering if the years are curing anything but their patience — steady their hand. Don’t let them release early. Don’t let them settle for three when You’re loading them for six.
Give them the patience to hold the tension until the launch, and give them the grit to rely on and trust you.
We’re not forgotten. We’re aimed. Send us when You’re ready.
Amen.
If this resonated with you, Bold Leading exists to help nonprofit leaders stay grounded in their mission while building the organizational capacity to sustain it. Whether you’re navigating the jump from practitioner to executive or just trying to reclaim your calendar, there’s more at boldleading.com.