Better or Bitter: The Choice Every Leader Faces After a Trial
In Exodus 18, Moses’ father-in-law Jethro shows up in camp and asks the obvious question: what’s it been like? Moses had every right to answer with a list of grievances — a nation that turned on him at the Red Sea, murmured against him at Marah, and nearly stoned him over water. Instead, Scripture says he told Jethro “all that the LORD had done” for Israel.
That’s the choice underneath every hard season of leadership: our trials can make us better, or they can make us bitter. Same facts, same suffering — but the telling of it either points people toward God or drags them into your grievance. Jethro’s response to Moses’ testimony was to worship. That doesn’t happen by accident.
If you’ve led anything — a family, a team, a church, a small business — you’ve had a Jethro moment: someone asks how it’s really going, and you get to decide which story you tell.
Read the full study in Case File 01: Moses — Chapter 11, “Moses’ Testimony.”
Continue the series: Eight Ways a Good Leader Can Fail
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