At the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta a few months ago, Perry Noble pointed out that some of Moses’ best work was done in the wilderness, where no one saw his brilliance.

That thought launched me on a study of some of the young leaders in the Bible and how they developed. One of my observations is that there are a number of leadership development programs in the Bible. The leaders who deliberately looked for and developed young people with leadership potential were not exactly hallmarks of exemplary leadership themselves: King Saul and Nebuchadnezzar. The former included spear dodging as part of his program and the latter recruited by kidnapping and tested via a fiery furnace.

My wife says that Esther was singled out in a development program. Not sure that was exactly the same kind of program.