A new leader took the stage. He outlined his vision for the coming years. He finished to a standing ovation. I sat to the side like a curmudgeon thinking, “We’ll see.”
Nothing against this new leader. I consider him a friend. Maybe I’m jaded from years of new leaders taking the stage, only to be discarded a few years later. The leader I described lasted only five years before being replaced by a new leader with a fresh vision.
Our Disillusionment With Leaders
Disillusionment with leaders isn’t a new thing. It’s as old as Saul, “a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he” (1 Samuel 9:2). God endorsed him, saying to Samuel, “You shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines” (1 Samuel 9:16). Yet it wasn’t long before Samuel told Saul, “You have rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD has rejected you from being king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:26).
The pattern of disillusionment continues throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. One of the worst epitaphs imaginable is written over one of them: “And he departed with no one’s regret” (2 Chronicles 21:20). “Nobody valued him while he lived, none lamented him when he died, but all wished that no greater loss might ever come to Jerusalem,” observed Matthew Henry. It doesn’t get much worse than this.
Our disillusionment with leaders continues today. We need and long for leaders, but we know they’re going to disappoint us. Political leaders, business leaders, and pastors come and go. Most of them arrive with great promise; few of them depart without leaving a trail of disappointment.
“If he has any flaws, I haven’t found them yet,” a friend of mine once commented about a new leader. “I get it now,” he told me a few years later. “He’s not the perfect package.” Sounds about right.
The Answer to our Longings
Micah doesn’t hold back in his criticism of the leaders of his day. “Because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height” (Micah 3:12).
Yet Micah hold out hope. Yes, God would judge the failures of the leaders. His message of judgment came through: God used Assyria and then Babylon to judge Israel and Judah. But Micah still found hope in a leader to come.
“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel,
whose coming forth is from of old,
from ancient days.
…And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.
And he shall be their peace.”
(Micah 5:2-5)
The answer to our disillusionment with leaders will never be met by new pastors or political or business leaders, no matter how good they may be. No new leadership book will ever produce a leader who satisfies our longings. Our longing for good leadership will only be met fully in one place: in the one who is born in an insignificant town, and yet whose origin is eternal, and whose rule will bring security and peace to the entire world and beyond.
Our leadership longings will only be met when the words of Revelation 11:15 come true: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” He’s the leader we need. Even better: he’s the leader God has given.