Navigating Leadership Challenges: Judy Douglass on Resilience and Faith

[00:00:00] Judy Douglass: A couple of years before we moved from California to Florida the Lord said to me, I'm sending you a son. And I said, no, thank you. And he said, I'm sending you a son. I said, okay, whatever you say, and time passed, and it didn't happen then and two years passed and he said, when you get to Florida, someone will say, can you take this boy? And I said, if that happens, then I guess this is from you, Lord.

Tommy Thomas Today, we're continuing the conversation we began last week with Judy Douglas. In this episode, Judy delves into her personal and professional journey, highlighting the importance of resilience, humility, and faith. She shares stories from her time working with Bill Bright and the transformative impact of adopting a foster child. This episode is packed with valuable lessons for leaders and caregivers alike. Let's pick up where we left off last week.

[00:01:06] Tommy Thomas: I'm curious. and here again, you've probably already alluded to this, but times in your life that have really tested your metal and what did you learn from those?

[00:01:19] Judy Douglass: I've mentioned that one was working with Bill Bright. And he just had strong different opinions than I did. And I needed to be responsive to him. He was the boss. So there were a couple of times when he wanted me to do something I really didn't want or think I could do because I didn't agree.

[00:01:48] And I asked the Lord, I said, maybe I should just leave the staff now. And the Lord said, no. He said, you can do what Bill wants you to do. And you've already demonstrated that you can help him see another perspective. and I'll give you an example of that. So, at Explo 74 in Korea, we went to Yeouido Island.

[00:02:19] Judy Douglass: And we had about 100,000 there, I think. I don't know. But the Korean people were reporting to the press that there were a million there every night. And I had another reporter from Christianity Today there also, and we said, there's no way there are many people here. And so, we actually walked the whole island.

And then said, all right, with Americans, you could only get this many because they're not going to be crunched up tight, but the Koreans are smaller, and they are willing to be right next to each other. And so, we got the biggest number we could possibly find. And it was not a million when Bill started to talk about it.

[00:03:12] Judy Douglass: And he said, there were a million people. And I said, Bill, there weren't a million people there. He said, that's what we need to say. I said, but it's not true. He said, that's what the Koreans are reporting, and we need to not offend them by not believing what they're saying. I said, okay, so here's how I can do that.

I can say the official reported numbers were by the police. And so, then that was true. That was their official reported numbers. But it's still always every time I heard somebody say there were a million people there. No, there weren't. No, there weren't. But that was hard. And I had a few run-ins with Dr. Bright that made me want to leave the staff. God just says this is where I want you and the other was waiting on Steve. It was a long wait, we got married, I was 31, now that wouldn't seem so strange, but 50 years ago, it seemed strange. You don't wait that long to get married, but God said, no, you wait, you just wait, I'm going to do this.

So those are two that were challenging for me. There have been some others, but those are probably the bigger ones. 

[00:04:33] Tommy Thomas: You've observed a lot of leaders over the course of your life. What's the most dangerous behavior or trait that you've seen derail a leader's life?

[00:04:49] Judy Douglass: Pride. They think they know, and they may know, more than others.

But to think you're better or more, make decisions, but also pride leads to a sense that I can do what I want. I'm the boss, I'm in charge. And that's what leads to a lot of the failures that we've seen publicly lately is that. So more than anything, I think it's pride and that's why even as I talk about Bill Bright and Steve Douglass, both very capable men, great leaders, I watched them.

[00:05:31] Judy Douglass: They were maybe two of the humblest people I've ever met. And so I just get concerned when people have to draw attention to themselves. For me, one of my key things as I work with people and have a team, I still have a team of 15 people. They do all the work. I just love on them. I'll tell you a story back in my early days of doing the Collegiate Challenge Magazine.

No, the Worldwide Challenge. Bruce Cook, who was Steve's roommate at Harvard, said something to me about a project that we had done for the magazine. And he says, that was really good. And I said, it was good, wasn't it? I said, I didn't do that. So and so did it. And I named who it was. And I said, they did a great job.

[00:06:25] Judy Douglass: And he said, one of the most important leadership principles that you can learn is to lift up the other people, to send the credit where it belongs and not take it yourself. I just am so grateful that God has helped me grow in that. So, I would recommend it to anyone.

[00:06:51] Tommy Thomas:  It's been said that we learn most from our failures. If that's the case, why are most of us so afraid to fail?

[00:07:00] Judy Douglass: Good question. I suppose I'm sure I can think of many, especially as a parent, but, one real failure was at two different times, but very similar. I had two women on my team that I was working a lot with and, I've already told you, I'm not a big rural follower and yet they were very structured and wanted to know exactly what was going to happen and who, and I just am a little looser and so, both of them ended up leaving our team. I didn't ask them to, I was sure we could come to some ability to work together, but they just felt they could not live on a team that was not more structured and that's who they were and everything. Now they're still friends to me that I could not help and see where I could work better.

[00:08:07] Judy Douglass: To be able to come together better because they were gifted people, and I was sad to see them go. So that was major. Probably another area that tested my metal and where I've seen failure is this boy that God sent us, right before we moved. A couple of years before we moved from California to Florida so, the Lord said to me, I'm sending you a son. And I said, no, thank you. And he said, I'm sending you a son. I said, okay, whatever you say, and time passed, and it didn't happen then, and two years passed and he said, when you get to Florida, someone will say, can you take this boy? And I said, if that happens, then I guess this is from you, Lord.

[00:09:03] Judy Douglass: Three weeks after we got here to Florida, this new friend said, do you know someone who could take an eight-year-old boy? And tears just came, and  I said, we might, I probably ought to talk to Steve about that. Anyway, this boy, his mother was an addict, and he didn't know his father and his grandparents were raising his older half-sister and he was living in neglected and dangerous places and lots of stuff and the county finally took him away. And the grandparents had him, but they said we can't do two of them. And so, they were looking to put him in foster care, hopefully adoption. It took a while, like a year to work out with the county and he came to live with us.

[00:09:58] Judy Douglass: He was almost 10. He couldn't read or write. Basically all sorts of issues in his life. And God sent him to us. He was shocked. We go to bed at a certain time, dinner at a table that we ate. We had dinner, and it was just so many things that were different for him and for us. And so that was challenging.

But as he got older, it was harder and harder because he just was so wounded by all the things that happened to him and didn't happen for him. And we just, we know we made mistakes. We didn't do it all right. It was hard, but in the end, it took about 16, 17 years, a long time. He's a good man now.

[00:10:49] Judy Douglass: He's married, he has a stepdaughter, and then two little girls. He has a good job, drilling water wells out in the country, and they have a farm, and they raise animals, and all sorts of things, and he works. My husband, in his frustration, used to say he's the most creative work avoider I've ever seen.

And in the later years, the last few years, we looked at him and said, he works harder than any person we've ever seen. And so, God redeemed what we've made a lot of mistakes. We didn't know what we were doing. And he had a lot of more pain. He made a lot of bad choices, but God did a miracle for him, for us, and this Prayer for Prodigals Ministry that grew out of it.

[00:11:44] Tommy Thomas: If you were writing a book on the burdens of leadership that only the CEO can bear, what would some of your chapter titles be?

[00:11:54] Judy Douglass: Oh, I don't like titles, so I'm not going to tell you that. Thinking up titles is one of the hardest things I do. I would say that it is important to be authentic, to really be the person that God has created you to be. And treat people the way they need to be treated. To believe they have value and that they can contribute well. To honor people for their work. To be kind and engage with them whenever you can. A lot of times before COVID and when Steve was still President, and I was at the office a lot. I used to just spend an afternoon going from desk to desk and talking with them and showing them that they were valued there and telling them how their contribution was really of great value and asking needs or prayer requests. And I wrote a blog post once called it's the people and I refrain from saying stupid. Because people think they're the ones that are important and people that God has sent to participate, to partner with you in the work he's given you. They're there.

[00:13:28] Judy Douglass: You can't do it without them. So don't think you can. Recognize the contributions that they make both in your own mind, but to them and to others as well.

[00:13:44] Tommy Thomas: I want to get you to respond to a couple of quotes. This is always a fun part of the podcast to me. I'll go with this first one from CS Lewis. Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain. It's his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

[00:14:09] Judy Douglass: That's fairly easy for me to answer because that's exactly what happened with our son. Without a doubt, the hardest, most painful part of this was all of those years trying to help him learn to be a person and a responsible one. But the pain that we experienced in that changed us a lot, helped us to learn to love and grace go further than strong words and anger or rejection in helping a person redeem.

And out of that has grown the Prayer for Prodigals. The Prayer for Prodigals Prayer Place on Facebook.  A Facebook page of prayer for prodigals and every June 2nd a Prayer for Prodigals Worldwide Prodigal Prayer Day and we invite people to give us first names of someone they want prayed for and unless they ask us later to take the name off, we don’t.

[00:15:22] Judy Douglass: So it accumulates because who doesn't want people to pray for your loved one? Whoever it is, most often children or grandchildren, but also your spouse, or your brother, or sister, and so this year on June 2nd I was at my Grandson's graduation so I didn't participate as much, but people gather in small groups, or we do a zoom call kind of thing.

And we had the largest number that we know of praying, after I don't know how many years is up to, we have about 11,000 names that I'm halfway through praying, since I wasn't available on the day of prayer this year, I'm praying through it slowly myself and naming every person and bringing them before the Lord.

[00:16:11] Judy Douglass: So great pain that we went through, and yet God has brought very fruitful help to so many people through this opportunity.

[00:16:25] Tommy Thomas: Here's a new quote. I've not asked this to anyone yet. Beware of the shorn beard of reputation for it is hard to regrow.

[00:16:41] Judy Douglass: That goes with pride. I think it's also evident in an awful lot of people being, yeah, their reputation has been harmed by things that have come out. And it is hard. Some try and it works, but most of the time it doesn't work if they try to come back. And so, I just go back to Jesus saying that he is humble and that we should be humble like he is and so that'll probably save us a lot of trouble later if we walk in humility and not in pride.

[00:17:27] Tommy Thomas: The last one. I'm not called to be successful, but to be faithful. Mother Teresa.

[00:17:39] Judy Douglass: Yeah, I think I would agree with that. It's hard to say much more to that. I think, how are we faithful? We're faithful to become the people that we're made to be. We're not accidents. And if you look at Ephesians 2:10, it says he made each of them. In the Psalm 139, he says he made each one of us. He was there forming us.

So, it's no surprise that I'm not a rule follower. Maybe that wasn't one of his anyway. And it's no surprise that I don't have musical ability. But I can do words pretty well. And in Ephesians 2, he says, you are a work of art, a masterpiece designed for the good works that I've already prepared for you and so, God wants us to walk closely enough with him to discover those things, to be intentional, to discover them, and then to live them out. And do things I had to do, break an engagement, give up a dream, wait when I didn't want to wait, while God was doing work in me, and then he has to be faithful to what he's given us to do.

[00:18:59] Judy Douglass: That doesn't mean it won't change some because it will. But faithfulness is to be obedient and surrender to the Lord in a way that I can do what he wants me to do. And the outcomes are up to him. I'm not doing them to be known. I'm not doing them to get accolades. I'm doing them because this is the work of God, the good works that God has prepared for me to do.

And God loves faithful people. He loves others too.

[00:19:38] Tommy Thomas: If you could give a younger version of yourself, a piece of advice, what would it be?

[00:19:49] Judy Douglass: There's lots of little things, specifics, but I would say two words that have been key for me. One is to keep trusting God, even when hard things happen. Was I happy that my husband left two years ago? No. But I'm trusting that God knew what he was doing, that it was his time, and there were good reasons.

God did tell me, but I therefore was trusting that he would stay with me, which he said the night Steve died. I said, now what am I supposed to do? And God said, I'll be with you. I said, I know that, but what am I supposed to do? And he says, no, every step of the way, I will be with you. And He has. And then the other is the practice of giving thanks in everything has probably transformed me more than almost anything. Learning in the good things I can easily say thank you for, but in the hard things, little hard things, big hard things, confusion, misunderstandings, great pain. Thank you, Lord. Because I trust you and that's made all the difference for me.

[00:21:11] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice anybody ever gave you?

[00:21:20] Judy Douglass: Just what I said, that was advice that I got from people, and learning to live it out. It's more important, and some people wouldn't agree, but a lot of people in leadership are trained to be leaders. I was never trained to be a leader. I just did what God wanted, and that's how He led me. So, for me, it has everything to do with my relationship with God. I let Him meet my needs and work in me. Give me comfort, give me courage, depending on what the need is. And yeah, the best advice I have is, oh, I'll tell you what the best advice is. This is one of Steve's famous ones. You want to know what God's plan for you is and what your job description is. Walk closely with God and do what He says.

If you want to know God’s plan for you, Steve would always say “Walk closely with God and do what He says”.

[00:22:22] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast.

If there are topics you'd like for me to explore, my email address is [email protected].  Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising.

If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.

Links and Resources

JobfitMatters Website

NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas

The Perfect Search - What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO

When You Love a Prodigal: 90 Days of Grace for the Wilderness by Judy Douglas

Prayer for Prodigals Podcast

Prayer for Prodigals Facebook Page

Secrets of Success: God’s Lifelines by Judy Douglas

Connect

[email protected]

Follow Tommy on LinkedIn

To book Judy for a speaking engagement or to learn more about her incredible life and ministry go to www.JudyDouglass.com. 

Listen to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas on:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify