John Lynch, Bruce McNicol, and Bill Thrall invite leaders off the exhausting road of pleasing God and into the freedom of trusting who He says they are.
- 1
Trust before pleasing
Pleasing God is a good desire, but it grows out of trusting Him, not the other way around.
- 2
Two rooms
Self-effort leads to the Room of Good Intentions; humility opens the Room of Grace.
- 3
Take off the mask
Masks protect our image but keep us from being known, loved, and helped.
- 4
A new identity
In Christ you are no longer who you were, even on your worst day.
Developing Virtues with the Spirit Shelf
Trading performance for trust reorders how a leader lives with others, and that is Justice at its root: right order that restores people instead of only correcting them. Humility opens the door to grace. Candor takes off the mask so truth can be spoken and received. Mercy moves toward people who fail instead of away from them, and Reconciliation does the slow work of repentance and forgiveness that keeps a team whole.
Try This Week
Tell one trusted friend something you have been covering with “I’m fine.” Then ask them: “What would help you feel safe being honest with me?”
The Resilient Leader’s Library · Lynch, McNicol & Thrall
The Cure Playbook
Lynch, McNicol, and Thrall picture two roads, one marked Pleasing God and one Trusting God. Only trust leads to the Room of Grace, where people can drop their masks and grow.
Two Roads, Two Rooms
The same good desire to please God leads to very different places.
The Pleasing God Road
The motive
- Earn God’s approval by doing better
- Primary aim: please Him enough
The door
- Self-Effort opens the Room of Good Intentions
Life inside
- Polished, “I’m fine” faces
- Sin managed and hidden
The Fork
The question
- What is my primary motive?
The order
- Pleasing first: never enough, trust never learned
- Trust first: pleasing God becomes its fruit
The Trusting God Road
The motive
- Trust what God says about me
- Primary aim: trust Him
The door
- Humility opens the Room of Grace
Life inside
- Real faces, safe to be known
- Sin brought into the light
What Grace Changes
Four things that look different in each room.
1Identity
In Good Intentions
- A sinner trying to become a saint
- Worth earned by performance
In the Room of Grace
- A new creation, with Christ in me
- Not who I was, even on my worst day
2Masks
In Good Intentions
- Look fine; hide what’s broken
- Energy spent managing image
In the Room of Grace
- Let trusted friends see my real face
- Known and still loved
3Sin
In Good Intentions
- Sin-management: try harder to sin less
- Shame drives me into hiding
In the Room of Grace
- Bring sin into the light
- Grow as I receive love and forgiveness
4Relationships
In Good Intentions
- Impress, compare, quietly judge
- Hurts left unresolved
In the Room of Grace
- Protect each other’s stories
- Repent and forgive quickly
Leading a Room of Grace
This playbook’s application of the book to leading others.
Go First
- Admit your own mistakes out loud
- Model the real face you hope to see
Protect
- Handle failure privately, with dignity
- Guard what people trust you with
Correct to Restore
- Pair hard truth with a path back
- Aim at their growth, not your relief
Repair
- Own harm quickly and specifically
- Forgive without keeping score
For Leaders
Trust comes first; pleasing God is its fruit. A leader who believes what God says about him can take off the mask, and his team learns it is safe to do the same.
Source: John Lynch, Bruce McNicol, and Bill Thrall (Trueface, new ed., 2016; first published 2011). Authors’ terms; ideas paraphrased.
“Leading a Room of Grace” applies the book to leadership; it is this playbook’s arrangement, not the authors’ framework. · The Resilient Leader’s Library · This Resilient Soul
Cover image courtesy of Open Library.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.