I was talking recently with a group of church leaders, and I asked them to share a frustration they were carrying in ministry right now. What came back was striking — not because the frustrations were unusual, but because they were almost identical across people in completely different contexts.
Flat momentum. A team that feels tired. A vision that feels stuck. The sense that you’re doing all the right things, but something just isn’t moving. One leader put it perfectly: “I feel like I’m running hard but going nowhere.”
I’ve been there. Jeannie and I have pastored Ikon Church for thirty-eight years. Over that time we’ve had mountain tops and valleys, seasons of extraordinary growth and seasons of grinding it out. And the thing I’ve learned — the thing I wish someone had told me earlier — is this:
Life is experienced in seasons. But it’s lived on levels.
That distinction changed how I lead.
The Writer of Ecclesiastes Saw It First
The Teacher in Ecclesiastes opens chapter three with one of the most quoted passages in the Bible:
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot…” — Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
Most people read this as a poem about acceptance. And there is acceptance in it — an acknowledgement that certain rhythms of life are beyond our control. But what the Teacher is really doing is more demanding than that. He isn’t counselling resignation. He is calling us to wisdom: the wisdom to recognise which season you’re in, to stop fighting what you cannot change, and to ask the better question — how do I lead and live well in the season I’m actually in?
Because here’s the truth: you can’t control the seasons. But you can control the level at which you live within them.
Seasons cycle. Levels ascend.
The Apostle Paul captures this in 2 Corinthians 3:18 — “we are being transformed into his image from glory to glory.” Note the movement. Not from glory to hardship to glory. From glory to glory. The transformation is always upward. Seasons come and go they go up and down. But levels? Levels are intended to go in one direction.
1. Seasons Are Inevitable — Levels Are Intentional
In leadership as in life, seasons come whether you want them or not. I’ve been in momentum seasons — where everything you touch seems to turn to gold. I’ve been in seasons where I couldn’t catch a break. Seasons where everyone seemed to love what we were doing. Seasons where it felt like half the church had quietly drifted. Seasons of opposition, seasons of joy, seasons of genuine grief.
You can’t vote on which one arrives next.
But here’s what I’ve learned: within every one of those seasons, there is a level available to you that you have not yet occupied. The building might be the same. The city might be the same. The faces might be the same. But you don’t have to lead from the same level.
Seasons happen to you. Levels happen in you.
That’s not just motivational language. It’s a theological claim. Two pastors can be in the same city, the same economy, serving the same demographic — and one is leading at a fundamentally different level. Not because their circumstances are different, but because they are different. They’ve grown beyond the limits of the season.
Proverbs 15:24 puts it simply: “The way of life winds upward for the wise.” Upward. The wise don’t plateau. They ascend. Not because their seasons are easier, but because they refuse to let their season set their ceiling.
2. Frustration Is Not Just Agitating — It’s Educating
So how do you know when it’s time for a new level?
Frustration.
I know that’s not the answer you were hoping for. But stick with me.
Every great leader I know faces seasons of deep frustration. And the instinct — every time — is to try to fix the season. To change the strategy. To hire someone new. To launch something different. Anything to make the frustration go away.
But often, the frustration is not a problem to fix. It’s an invitation to a new level.
When the systems that used to work doesn’t work anymore — that’s not just a systems problem. When the way you led last year no longer inspires your team — that’s not just a culture problem. When the strategy that brought growth now feels stale — that’s not just a strategy problem. God may be using every one of those frustrations to say the same thing he said to Israel at the foot of the mountain:
“You have stayed long enough at this mountain… See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession.” — Deuteronomy 1:6, 8
You have stayed long enough. That’s not a rebuke. It’s a release. God is not frustrated with you — he’s frustrated for you. He can see what’s possible on the other side of a new level, and he will not let you settle for the current one.
Exodus 23:30 adds a patient, important word: “Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.” Notice that word — until. The process of going level to level is the very thing that increases your capacity for what comes next. The frustration isn’t wasted. It’s formational.
Ask yourself honestly: What’s frustrating me right now? Don’t just vent about it. Study it. Something in there is trying to tell you something.
3. It Takes Maturity to Admit “This Level Isn’t Working”
This is where most leaders get stuck.
It takes real humility — and a certain kind of courage — to look at what used to work and say out loud: “It’s not working anymore.” To admit that the approach that built this team last year might not build it this year. That the system you put in place three years ago is no longer fit for purpose. That what got you here will not get you there.
Leaders evolve or they erode. There isn’t a middle option.
Paul’s language in Philippians 3 is instructive here. He doesn’t say he’s arrived. He says he is pressing on — and crucially, he names what makes that possible:
“Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 3:13-14
Forgetting what is behind. You can’t move to the next level while clinging to the last one. You cannot be offended when God shows you the deficiency of your current level. You cannot get defensive when he says, “There’s more — but it requires a different version of you.”
The most freeing statement I’ve learned to make is this: I don’t want to hold on to anything that’s holding me back.
That applies to attitudes, habits, systems, default modes of leadership — anything. If it’s holding you back, it has to go.
4. From Surviving to Supernatural Leadership
There are two storms in the Gospels that I find myself returning to.
In the first, the disciples are in a boat, terrified, while Jesus is asleep. They wake him in panic. He calms the wind and waves. What strikes me is not the miracle — it’s the level. Jesus could sleep through what caused panic in everyone else. He wasn’t unaware of the storm. He was operating at a different level within it.
In the second, Jesus walks on the water toward the terrified disciples. What they feared most became the ground he stood on.
What Jesus did literally, we are invited to do metaphorically. Leaders at a new level walk on what other people drown in. They bring calm into crisis. They carry faith into fear. They lead with clarity in the very circumstances that cause others to freeze.
That’s not leadership skill. That’s supernatural leadership. And it is available to you — not when your season changes, but when you decide to lead at a new level within the season you’re already in.
Three Questions to Sit With This Week
You don’t need a new season. You need a new level. Here’s where to start:
First — what season am I actually in? Not the one you wish you were in. The real one. Name it honestly. You can’t navigate a season you won’t acknowledge.
Second — what frustration is God using to invite me higher? Don’t just manage the frustration. Listen to it. What is it telling you about where you’ve been camped too long?
Third — what am I holding onto that’s holding me back? An attitude. A system. A default. A posture. Something. Name it. And decide today that you don’t want to hold on to anything that’s holding you back.
Your season may not change. But you don’t have to lead from the same level.
What season are you navigating right now — and what might God be inviting you into? Leave a comment below.
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Paul Benger 