WHEN JOSIAH FRANKLIN DIED on January 16, 1745, his son Benjamin instructed a memorialist to inscribe a verse of Scripture on his father’s tombstone. It was his father’s favorite proverb: “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings.”1

I don’t know why Josiah Franklin staked claim to that particular proverb, that particular promise. Perhaps it was a promise for the next generation of Franklins? Josiah would never stand before a king himself, but he raised a son who would. He dedicated his tenth son to the Lord as a tithe. His dream for Benjamin was that he would become a minister, but instead he became a minister plenipotentiary.

Perhaps the most important diplomat in American history, Benjamin Josiah Franklin secured the support of France during America’s struggle for independence. Without his statecraft the American Revolution likely would have failed. And the same could be said for the Continental Congress.

Toward the end of his illustrious and industrious life, Benjamin Franklin made this wide-angle observation: “I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings, which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before five, and even had the honor of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner.”2

Benjamin Franklin’s curriculum vitae might be unmatched among our Founding Fathers. Franklin not only signed the Declaration of Independence but also edited it. His inventions include the lightning rod, the Franklin stove, and bifocals. His periodical, Poor Richard’s Almanac, made him the most widely read writer in eighteenth-century America. He started the American Philosophical Society, served as postmaster of Philadelphia, and was unanimously elected sixth president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania.

A résumé like that can seem a little surreal, but I left out one critical piece of the puzzle. It’s not insignificant that Benjamin Franklin served as a clerk in the Pennsylvania General Assembly for fifteen years before he won a seat. He transcribed thousands of speeches before he delivered one. He listened to thousands of debates before he got into one. Benjamin Franklin also served for nearly a decade as an apprentice printer to his brother.

Simply put, he was an understudy. And he studied hard.

We don’t know much about Naharai the Beerothite, but we know enough. He was an armorbearer, which means that he carried Joab’s armor and ran his errands. It wasn’t glamorous work, but it put him in proximity to Joab, who was in proximity to David. And Naharai must have been diligent in his calling, because he is counted among the mighty men. Like each of them, Naharai stood before King David, fulfilling the ancient proverb before David’s son Solomon even wrote it. I wouldn’t be surprised if King Solomon had the mighty men in mind when he penned those words.

Aide-de-Camp

There is a trend in Scripture that is unignorable. Many of the greatest leaders were understudies. Elisha carried Elijah’s mantle. Joshua climbed Mount Sinai with Moses. Even David served as Saul’s armorbearer until Saul started throwing spears at him!

What’s true in Scripture is true in history.

You may know that our first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, served as George Washington’s aide-de-camp during the Revolutionary War. But did you know that General Washington had thirty-three aides? And they are a veritable who’s who list in their own right. They didn’t just serve George Washington; they learned how to lead from him.3

Edmund Jennings Randolph became the first attorney general of the United States, as well as the second secretary of state. Jonathan Trumbull Jr. was elected to the First Congress and served as Speaker of the House in the Second Congress. Dr. David Cobb was elected to the Third Congress in 1793. Alexander Contee Hanson served in the Senate. David Humphreys served as foreign minister to both Portugal and Spain. James McHenry had a fort named after him, and it was the defense of that fort in the Battle of 1812 that inspired Francis Scott Key’s “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And last but not least, John Trumball’s painting The Declaration of Independence graces the back of the two-dollar bill.

I have no idea what Peregrine Fitzhugh, Hodijah Baylies, or Dr. Ebenezer Man went on to do after serving under Washington, but I love their names. Plus, they remind me of Naharai the Beerothite. Each of Washington’s aides-de-camp played a critical role at a critical time in our history, just like each of David’s mighty men.

There is a season to go after your dreams, but there is also a season to serve someone else’s dream. The best way to learn leadership is to serve under a gifted leader. Washington’s aides-de-camp learned things that couldn’t be taught in a classroom. They could be learned only on a battlefield. And the same could be said of David’s mighty men.

I live by a little mantra: Don’t seek opportunity; seek God, and opportunity will seek you. I’m not suggesting that you don’t keep your eyes open or put your best foot forward. And if opportunity knocks, answer it. But the best path to your dream isn’t seeking a position of leadership; it’s posturing yourself as a servant.

All dreamers have to pay their dues, and I fear for those who don’t. Someday you’ll owe back taxes for the shortcuts you take. And your success will be short lived. Don’t be in such a hurry to begin the next chapter of your life that you fail to ace the lessons the current chapter is trying to teach you.

If you’re diligent, you’ll stand before kings. Or sit at tables with former presidents!

How’d I Get Here?

In the past few years, I’ve had a few How’d I get here? moments. I keep finding myself at tables with people that I have no business being in the same room with, including lunch with a former president and dinner with a former NFL MVP. But I’ve discovered on this dream journey that when you follow Jesus, you go places that are off the grid and meet people who are out of your league.

A year ago I was sitting at a table with a three-star general, another former NFL MVP, and a member of Congress. What did we have in common? We’re friends with Dick Foth, of course. I’ve come to think of it as the five degrees of Dick Foth! At the head of this table was Dick’s former aide-de-camp Jeremy Vallerand.

As a twenty-something, Jeremy spent a year in DC driving Dick Foth all over Capitol Hill. He’s one of a half-dozen aides who spent a year with Dick during his time in DC. In fact, Dick’s first aide was my brother-in-law Joel Schmidgall, who now serves as our executive pastor at National Community Church.

During his year in DC, Jeremy became proficient at handling rush-hour traffic and parallel parking. He also learned invaluable lessons in leadership from Dr. Foth. Fast-forward a decade, and Jeremy now leads an amazing nonprofit called Rescue:Freedom whose five-hundred-pound lion is human trafficking.

“What motivates me is the fact that we are able to help boys and girls escape from slavery,” Jeremy said in a recent Forbes profile. “Watching them pursue their dreams is what keeps me going.”4

Jeremy is a modern-day Moses. His dream is setting slaves free so they can dream again. And to those who run the brothels and work camps, Rescue:Freedom says, “Let my people go!”

Climb for Captives

The genesis moment for Jeremy was his first trip to Kamathipura, which has one of the largest red-light districts in Asia. It was there that Jeremy met thirty-five children who were HIV-positive. He braced himself for what he thought would be a very somber place, but instead he felt as though he had found the fountain of hope. Human trafficking was no longer just an issue; it now had a face. And when Jeremy flew back to his home in Seattle, he left his heart behind.

A few months later Jeremy was planning to climb Mount Rainier on July Fourth. He was going to do it for fun, but then he had an idea. “People do all kinds of things to raise money for causes,” Jeremy said. “If you can run marathons for cancer research or sell cookies for Girl Scouts, why can’t you climb mountains to rescue kids from slavery?” Especially on the Fourth of July!

Jeremy’s goal for that first Climb for Captives was to raise $14,410—one dollar for every vertical foot of the mountain. That first climb raised $20,000, and subsequent climbs have raised $486,000. And Jeremy’s dream has caused a chain reaction. “We’ve seen people use bike races, marathons, dinner parties, garage sales, wedding gifts, dance performances, and microroasted coffee,” said Jeremy.

People are leveraging what they love to do for the cause they care about.

“I started off by dedicating a climb to a cause,” Jeremy said. “Somewhere along the way I dedicated my life to a dream.”

When Jeremy moved to Washington, DC, a decade ago, he had no idea what would come of it. And he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. If you’re in a similar situation, get around someone with a dream. Get as close as you can. It might just start a chain reaction that changes your life and theirs.

One fun ripple effect: Dick Foth serves as the chairman of the Rescue:Freedom board that Jeremy Vallerand, his former protégé, leads. It’s more than a favor to a former aide-de-camp. It’s a cause that Dick has devoted the rest of his life to!

Stoop, Young Man

When he was a young man, Benjamin Franklin was quite scathing in his editorials, more than a few of which targeted the Puritan preacher Cotton Mather. In a rather magnanimous gesture, Mather invited Benjamin over for dinner one night and showed him his library. Franklin spent much of his time and money as a young man acquiring one of the largest libraries in America, consisting of 4,276 volumes.

As they walked through a narrow passage into the library, Mather yelled back at Franklin, “Stoop! Stoop!” Franklin didn’t understand the exhortation until it was too late and bumped his head on a low beam. Like any good preacher, Mather turned it into a sermon. “Let this be a caution to you not always to hold your head so high. Stoop, young man, stoop—as you go through this world—and you’ll miss many hard thumps.”

Many years later Franklin told Mather’s son that he never forget that moment, that lesson. “This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me,” said Franklin, “and I often think of it when I see pride mortified and misfortunes brought upon people by carrying their heads too high.”5

One of the defining moments of my life was getting cut down to size by a summer intern. I made a prideful statement about National Community Church, and he called me on it. At first I was defensive. But I’m so grateful he had the courage to call me out. I certainly don’t want to give the impression that I’ve conquered pride. Like each of the seven deadly sins, pride has nine lives. You have to fight the battle every single day, but there are decisive victories. And that was one of them.

It was that humbling experience that gave birth to a little mantra that we repeat around NCC all the time: If you stay humble and stay hungry, there is nothing God cannot do in you or through you.

Let me pull back the curtain on NCC a little bit. We have an all-star team that is incredibly talented. Our worship leaders are song-writing machines. In my humble opinion, pun intended, they are writing some of the best worship music in America.6 Our media team produces trailers, documentaries, and short films that are Hollywood quality. And with the help of our friends at Orange,7 Crosswalk Kids is crushing it. But attitude trumps talent seven days a week and twice on Sunday!

When we hire people, we’re certainly looking for skills, for smarts. If you graduated summa cum laude, it tells me you have a head on your shoulders. If you graduated thank the laude, we probably won’t hire you in our finance department. But even more than aptitude, we’re looking for an attitude. We’re looking for humility, teachability, and a sense of humor.

At twenty years of age, Franklin identified the virtues that he would diligently work to develop. He created a checklist and graded himself every day. Originally, the list was composed of twelve virtues. It wasn’t until he had been humbled a time or two that Franklin added the thirteenth virtue, humility. Next to it he wrote, “Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”

There is a sequence in Scripture that is sacrosanct: “Pride goeth before destruction,” and “humility comes before honor.”8 In the spiritual order of things, it’s inviolable.

Pride is the first chapter in the book of failure.

Humility is the first chapter in the book of success.

God won’t put you in a position of leadership until you take a posture of servanthood.

The highest compliment paid to Benaiah may be this one: “He was held in greater honor than any of the Thirty.”9 It’s a simple descriptor, but it says so much about Benaiah. Here’s my translation: He was more humble than any of the Thirty. That’s not an exegetical jump; it’s a spiritual law. Even if the word humility is not explicitly mentioned in the text of Scripture, it’s part of the sequence.

And there are two ways to get it: humble yourself or let God humble you. It’s one or the other. Choose the former so you don’t have to experience the latter!

Humility is the prologue to every success story in Scripture.

It was true of Benaiah.

It was true of Naharai.

It’s true of you.