In my phone I have a Notes app where I jot down illuminations the Holy Spirit gives me throughout my day. One of the folders pertains to leadership. These notes eventually turn into books or articles or sermons, and some go to private leadership development. It is fascinating to see these succinct illuminations become so transformational in the personal and professional lives of leaders. Sometimes we do not need a book, an article, a sermon, a Glory-filled prayer time, an expensive conference, etc. to set a new personal or professional trajectory. Sometimes we simply need a Spirit-anointed proverb that digs and digs and digs into our soul as it plays in our mind repetitively at the loving insistence of the Holy Spirit.
    The following proverbs are from the Leadership Notes folder in my phone, accumulated over several years. In recent seasons these particular proverbs have emerged to the forefront of many people's personal and professional development. In other words, they seem to be especially salient lately, perhaps prophetic.

Opportunity does not care what you're going through.
    Many years ago I wrote an article entitled, The Perplexity & Complexity of the Reward. In it I explained, using multiple scriptures across both Testaments, how the Lord's answers, rewards, and blessings do not always come at the time or in the form we expect. For this reason many people miss, or reject altogether, the most visceral desires of their heart incarnating right before their eyes. This is life on earth; no timing and no circumstance will ever be literally perfect. If you are too anal about everything being just right, the perplexity and complexity of the reward will offend you, and you will miss the very promise land you pray and daydream about. Luke 19:42,44 (NIV): ...If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes...because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.

Mercy triumphs over judgment, but what happens when pride triumphs over mercy?
    Many Christians--especially those lost in the seeker-sensitive, sloppy agape, greasy grace fantasyland--love to quote and only quote James 2:13. The problem is, there are just over 31,100 verses in Scripture. James 2:13 has to be synchronized, harmonized, and understood with the other 31,100 verses, and more specifically, the other 7,957 verses of the New Testament. Whatever you think "judgment" means in James 2:13, it absolutely cannot mean to stop all moral inquiries and conclusions, because too many other New Testament verses tell us to do just that, even James himself! See James 1:21, 3:14-16, 4:1-10, 5:1-6 and the assertive moral analysis and conclusions in those passages. In fact, James 4:6 says God opposes or fights against or sets Himself against the prideful person (he is writing to Christians). Mercy triumphs over judgment, but James articulates that pride can triumph over mercy, setting the prideful person up as enemy-status in direct conflict with God.

Understand the dictator's fake bargain.
    One of the most insightful books ever written is, The Logic of Authoritarian Bargains: A Test of a Structural Model (by Anders Olofsgård, Raj M. Desai, Tarik Yousef). If you have had any degree of personal experience with controlling and domineering individuals, read this book. It is written in a political context, however, the conceptual understructure is the same for all types of domineers, from the eggshell parent to the eggshell romantic partner to the eggshell friend to the eggshell coworker to the eggshell pastor.
    A dictator offers some existential, emotional, and/or economic value in exchange for control. Those controlled accept this "bargain" because of foundational fears and missing pieces in their own personality and reality. It is a partnership of sickness, like the blind man carrying the lame man who can see. It is not a relationship, it is an exploitationship. You have questions you can't answer and they have answers you can't question. When you have little to no identity, individuality, and independence you are a blank screen for a domineering person to project upon.

A dictator's greatest fear is an attractive alternative, or someone who empowers identity, individuality, and independence.
    A controlling person's demons, their deepest and sickest inner darkness, is most obvious when those under them are exposed to an attractive alternative to the bargain, i.e., someone who empowers identity, individuality, and independence.

A fighter versus a mercenary versus a strategist versus a wise ruler.
    A fighter starts the battle. A mercenary wins the battle without loss. A strategist wins the war. A wise ruler wins the peace. Being a fighter is truly the lowest, most elementary level of combat. This is why Paul said we are and we must be "more than conquerors through Him who loved us" (Ro 8:37).

Beware of plastic fruits of the Spirit.
    No one is better at toxic positivity than fake Christians. This subset of alleged Christians are condescendingly polite, smugly self-righteous, act like your Holy Spirit, and yet have glaring hypocrisies, double standards, and salacious skeletons in their closet. When you display spiritual progress and victories they give you that "lollipop and pat on the head" attitude. Beware of plastic fruits of the Spirit. 

You decide: biopsy or autopsy.
    Refusing a biopsy today means your autopsy tomorrow. I am referring to cancers of the soul, cancers of character, relationship cancers, cancerous individuals, all forms of intangible cancers that require recognition, treatment, and full removal before they permanently destroy the inheritances and promise lands God has planned for you.