Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for others… is not to lose yourself in the process of serving them.

1. When One Small Thing Becomes Too Much

It was meant to be a peaceful Sunday morning. The plan was simple: take the kids for a swim, then head out to meet Pastor Steven and Bee Kim for breakfast. We had enough time. The kids were excited. I had mentally prepared for a meaningful day of rest and connection.

But that morning unraveled faster than I expected.

As we prepared to leave the pool, I noticed one of the boys’ breathing tubes was missing. I asked them where it was, and they immediately started pointing fingers. One insisted he had passed it to his brother. The other claimed he had already returned it. No one was willing to take ownership.

What triggered me wasn’t the missing item. It was the growing pattern of avoidance and the sense that I was the only one trying to hold everything together while we were already running close to the time.

I asked them firmly to go and retrieve it. They hesitated and tried to deflect the responsibility again. At that point, I lost my composure. I walked back toward the pool and jumped in fully clothed to find it myself. In doing so, I created an even bigger disruption. I was wet, frustrated, and late.

On top of that, I later realized that I had also lost my access card during the incident. The emotional tension from that one missing tube had spilled into every part of our schedule, and what had started as a morning of intention had become reactive and chaotic.

2. A Silent Guilt, a Heavy Heart

We managed to move forward with the day. I changed clothes, gathered the kids, and we met with Pastor Steven and Bee Kim. The conversation was rich and encouraging, and for a few hours I convinced myself that the day had turned around.

But not everyone had moved on as quickly as I had.

Later in the afternoon, as I was about to send the couple back to their hotel, my second son asked to join me in the car. I didn’t think much of it at first. But once we were alone, he looked uncomfortable. After a few minutes, he finally said something I’ll never forget.

He told me that earlier, when the tube went missing, he had been terrified that I was going to ask him to take off his clothes and jump into the pool himself. He said it would have been humiliating, and that he was really scared I would make him do that.

Only then did I realize he had been carrying the emotional weight of that morning for the entire day. While I had already moved on, he was still stuck inside the guilt and fear that had built up in him.

I pulled the car over, reached out to him, and apologized. I assured him I hadn’t even considered doing that and asked for his forgiveness. That moment helped me see just how much damage can be caused when I don’t pause to process what’s happening—not just in me, but in those I lead.

What I thought was a quick, frustrated reaction had left an impression that stayed with him all day. And the longer he carried that unspoken fear, the heavier it became.

3. The Mirror of Responsibility

Earlier that morning, I had told my children not to blame each other. I reminded them that each of them had a tube, and both had a role in ensuring it wasn’t lost. I told them to take shared responsibility instead of pointing fingers.

But the irony didn’t hit me until much later. While I was telling them not to shift blame, I was doing the exact same thing. I was blaming the stress of the moment, their behavior, the time pressure—everything but myself.

In leadership, it’s easy to speak values while modeling something else entirely. We tell others to take ownership, while quietly making excuses for our own actions. We emphasize responsibility, but in our reactions, we outsource it emotionally.

That morning, I didn’t embody what I taught. And the cost wasn’t just the reaction—it was the mixed signal I sent to my children. I was holding them to a standard I wasn’t meeting myself.

This isn’t just a parenting issue. It’s a leadership one. People don’t just follow our words. They respond to our consistency.

4. Is There Always a Right or Wrong?

That incident made me reflect on something deeper: whether leadership decisions always fall into neat categories of right and wrong. In that moment, was I wrong to feel frustrated? Probably not. But was I right in how I responded? Certainly not.

It reminded me that leadership often happens in the gray zones—where what matters most is not certainty, but clarity of perspective. We can have valid emotions and still make invalid decisions if we don’t pause to frame them properly.

I thought about broader issues, like migration. In recent years, I’ve reflected a lot on the question of whether we should remain in our home country to serve it, or consider moving elsewhere to build a better future. As a Malaysian Chinese, I know that our ancestors migrated to Nanyang generations ago not out of ambition, but survival. That one decision redefined the future of entire family lines.

Today, we carry the fruit of that choice—and the tension. What once was seen as necessity is now interpreted through different values. Should we stay and contribute? Should we go and grow? Who decides what’s “right”?

There is no easy answer. But it shows that many leadership questions aren’t moral binaries. They are shaped by the lenses we use, and by the legacy we’re trying to build.

5. Redefining Sacrifice, Rethinking Service

That Sunday helped me identify a faulty belief I had carried for too long—the belief that true love and leadership must always come with sacrifice, and that the more we give, the more we care.

But there is a kind of sacrifice that doesn’t build anyone. It just empties you quietly, until you no longer have anything left to give.

I began asking harder questions. Would I, in the name of helping someone, pick up destructive habits? Would I stay up every night and neglect my health because I feel guilty saying no? Would I abandon moments with my family to solve problems that someone else could handle?

The truth is, we do this more often than we admit. We think we’re being selfless, but sometimes we’re just being irresponsible with what matters most.

That’s when I learned a truth I keep returning to:

You can’t pour out if your cup has a hole at the bottom.

This shifted my understanding of servanthood. It’s not about endless sacrifice. It’s about sustainable sacrifice—the kind that honors both the mission and the person carrying it.

6. A Physiology of Leadership: Gym, Swim, Sauna

As I tried to recalibrate my life, I found myself returning to physical rhythms: gym, swim, sauna. Not for appearance. For alignment.

Lifting weights taught me that strength comes not from continuous effort, but from intentional cycles of stress and recovery. If you don’t rest between sets, your muscles fail.

Swimming reminded me that stamina is always depleting. The longer you move, the more exhausted you get. And at some point, you have to stop—not because you’ve failed, but because you need to breathe.

These routines revealed a larger principle:

Rest is not indulgence. It’s immunization.

It protects your clarity, your relationships, and your judgment. Without it, you lead from depletion. And when that becomes your baseline, you start reacting to everything—and contributing very little.

7. Contain or Spill: The Two Cycles of Leadership Energy

That morning by the pool wasn’t just a random outburst. It was a reflection of something I’ve now come to name in my leadership: the difference between containment and spillage.

Every leader I know is living in one of two cycles:

Spill Cycle:

• Emotional pressure builds.
• We suppress our feelings instead of processing them.
• Over time, we grow resentful and begin reacting, not responding.
• Eventually, the same triggers resurface again and again because we’ve never addressed the root.

Contain Cycle:

• We pause and acknowledge what we’re feeling.
• We build in space to rest and reflect.
• We intentionally replenish—not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually.
• We return to others from a place of clarity and overflow.

That Sunday, I lived both cycles.

I spilled in the morning. My emotional reaction, though brief, left a lasting impression on my son. But later, when I listened to him, owned my part, and apologized, I began to contain the moment. And the shift was not just about emotion—it was about the kind of leader I want to be.

8. A Church, a Verse, a Deeper Anchor

That evening, Pastor Steven and Bee Kim shared reflections from their journey planting Every Nation JB—the first expansion since Pastor Tim’s passing. Their words anchored the lessons of my day in something deeper.

Bee Kim said something that stayed with me:

“Sometimes what looks like a disaster is actually God’s doorway to something redemptive. And even if you don’t understand the delay, or the detour, God is still working.”

She quoted Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”

Then she shared a personal story. She once prayed for someone’s healing, and the healing didn’t come—at least not immediately. At first, it caused confusion. But eventually she realized the pain had protected that person from stepping into something they were never meant to commit to. Once that risk passed, the pain disappeared.

That story helped me frame my day differently. Maybe what felt like emotional failure in the morning was actually a prompt—one that forced a deeper conversation, a clearer shift in how I show up for those around me.

9. What Must Never Be Given Away

The greatest leadership shift I took from that day was this:

Leadership is not about how much you can give away. It’s about knowing what should never be given away.

That includes your health, your presence, your marriage, your clarity, and your spiritual rhythm. These aren’t negotiable. They are the foundations of everything else.

We don’t lead best by burning out for others. We lead best by guarding what allows us to keep showing up.