Kristi Burchfiel

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 6 Slow down. Read Daniel 2:14-16. According to researchers, when we make decisions quickly, we actually think much less about them. And while that would sound intuitive, because making a decision quickly means that we would have spent less time on it, what it actually means is that our decisions are made with less thought, and therefore less critical problem-solving and understanding of a situation. When we make a decision quickly, we are generally making more of an emotional decision and less of a thoughtful decision. Emotional decisions, while they may feel a certain way, are not always based on rational choice. As Daniel is…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 5 Blind obedience. Read Daniel 2:14. We’ve all met the people who just do whatever they’re told to do. They don’t ever seem to have an independent thought and they just always go along with the flow. When you pair someone like that up with a unrealistic leader, you end up with trouble. As we saw in the previous days, the king has made a completely unrealistic demand. The first response we saw was the group of people who whined about it. And yes, it was completely unrealistic, but their whining didn’t help anything. And in fact, it just made it worse, because it made…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 4 The whiners. Read Daniel 2:10-13. If you’ve ever spent my time around other people, you will notice that often there’s a group of people who just are never happy. It doesn’t matter what the boss says, they will find something to complain about. These are the whiners. They’re the ones who can take even a good situation and make it sound truly awful and horrible. They like to encourage other people to join their way of thinking. As we look at responses to this king’s outrageously crazy demand, we first have to look at the whiners. Admittedly, what the king was asking for was…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 3 High stakes and highly unrealistic. Read Daniel 2:1-9. We’ve all had difficult bosses before. You know the ones. They always seem impossible to please. Nothing is ever good enough. There’s fault in everything we do. They always seem to ask for the impossible with absolutely no budget, no timeline, and they want it all done yesterday. While we may have struggled with some of our leaders, we’ve probably never been told what Daniel got told. The king had a dream and wanted to know what that dream meant. Not really all that unusual in that day and time. However, he refused to tell people…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 2 God’s gift. Read Daniel 1:17-21. When you were a leader who is surrounded by other leaders that just don’t seem to get it or who are not good or Godly leaders, it can be tempting to become prideful and arrogant. We see others in leadership positions and we think that we could do the job so much better because we are so much smarter or have so much more ability. However, as we see here in Daniel, it’s important to remember that God is the one who gives us our wisdom and knowledge. We would not understand anything if it were not for God’s…

Leading Through Challenging Circumstances, Day 1 The resolution. Read Daniel 1:1-16. Leading anyone or anything can be challenging all by itself. However, if you start adding on difficult circumstances and frustrating leadership, leading others can be truly daunting. We’re going to work our way through the book of Daniel and see a true leader. Daniel didn’t sign up for leadership and he wasn’t looking for it. He was taken captive and ended up in a position of leadership, and God used him in tremendous ways, even though the king he served wasn’t always following God. We can learn from him how to be a Godly leader, even when we are…