When you step into the world of mentorship, it’s easy to feel like you need to have all the answers. Maybe you think you have to be perfect, or at least close to it, before you can guide someone else. But let’s be clear from the start; this journey is not about perfection. It’s about transformation. It’s about growth. And most of all, it’s about honesty. If you’re waiting to become flawless before you help someone else, you’ll be waiting forever. But if you’re willing to be honest about your journey; your wounds, your breakthroughs, your failures, and your healing; then you’re already on solid ground. You’re already becoming the kind of mentor people can trust.

You see, transformation has levels. Think of it like a ladder. If you’re only on the first rung, you might be able to help someone get up from the ground to the first step; but that’s about it. You can’t lead someone to a place you’ve never been. And when we talk about leading from a healed place, we don’t mean you’ve conquered everything. It means you’ve faced your pain, you’ve walked through the process, and now you’re living from a place of growing maturity. You’ve moved from self-righteousness to faith righteousness, even if you still get tempted to fall back into old ways. That movement, that direction; that’s what makes you ready to mentor.

In recovery programs like the twelve steps, the model is simple but powerful. You don’t guide someone through the steps unless you’ve gone through them yourself. And not just gone through them once, but lived them. Grown through them. Proved them over time. Why? Because only those who have walked the path can help others walk it. That’s why, in mentoring, the first move is always internal. You have to remove the beam from your own eye before you can help someone else with their speck. This doesn’t mean you’re done growing; it means you’re walking honestly. You’re owning your story. You’ve faced the lies, the trauma, the false identities, and you’re moving forward in truth.

Trying to lead others while your own lens is still distorted is dangerous. And not just for you; for them. Jesus said that the Pharisees worked hard to convert people, but ended up making them “twice the sons of hell.” That’s heavy, but it shows a real danger: we reproduce what we carry. If you lead from wounds you haven’t healed, you’ll hand down those same wounds. If you lead from pride, you’ll teach performance. If you lead from fear, you’ll build followers who are afraid to fail. That’s not leadership. That's a duplication of dysfunction. That’s why your heart has to go first.

Now let’s talk about fire and quicksand. The Bible tells us in the book of Jude that we should be able to “pull others out of the fire,” even while hating the sin that clings to them. That image shows a powerful truth: you can only pull someone from the fire if you’re not still burning in it yourself. The same goes for quicksand. Imagine someone sinking, crying for help. If you jump in without a stable foundation, now you’re both stuck. But if you’ve found solid ground, now you can pull. Now you can lift. That’s the whole point; you must be in a place of stability before you reach out to help someone else become stable. Your healing becomes the anchor that helps someone else rise.

This doesn’t mean we ignore our desire to help. Men are wired to protect, to fight for something, to build. We want to rescue. We want to lead. And that’s a good thing. But if that drive isn’t grounded in humility and healing, we’ll end up reacting instead of responding. We’ll try to rescue when we haven’t yet recovered. And that never works. In fact, it can hurt more than it helps. So how do we balance that strong desire to lead with the need to be healed? By facing the tension honestly.