Why Does God Allow Poor Leadership?

As followers of Jesus, we often look around at the culture in which we live and wonder how it has become this bad. We look at poor leadership at whatever level – whether in our businesses, community, or even in the nation overall – and we wish for better. We wonder what it would be like if our leaders also followed Jesus.

Why Allow Poor Leadership?

In my last post, I talked about how we should behave when working in an environment where the open sharing of our Christian faith is either limited or even prohibited altogether. We looked at the example of David in 1 Samuel 24:1-7 to see how he handled remaining under Saul’s authority as king, even though he had been anointed to follow Saul as king.

Today, I want us to think about the various reasons that God may have for leaving Saul in authority as long as He did. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever wondered why certain poor leadership is allowed to remain in authority today?

I can tell you that I have wondered this! At the same time, I think there are many possible answers we should consider.

1 – David Was Not Ready

You can find a number of examples in the Old Testament where children became king at very young ages – even before becoming teenagers! Can you imagine? Anyway, it is possible that God knew that David was not yet ready to take over as king. It could have been any number of things that God wanted to teach David before establishing him on the throne. We can only guess as to what those lessons are.

Maybe the same is true today. God may be preparing someone to fill a given authority position, but that person is not yet ready. In the meantime, He allows the poor leadership currently in that position to remain until the preferred one is ready.

2 – God Was Trying To Reach Saul

Look at the number of times that God tried to get Saul’s attention – using both David and Samuel. Maybe He allowed Saul to remain on the throne longer than he deserved because He was still trying to reach Saul.

This same idea could apply to a current day situation. It could be that God is chasing the person you think is wrongly placed in an authority position. Maybe God has plans to work a miracle in his heart and just needs a little more time to get that done.

3 – God Was Orchestrating Events

One of the problems we have as humans is that we are severely limited in our capacity to imagine what God is up to. Our minds are so small and our imaginations so limited when compared with His. For us to think we can identify exactly what God is working on from one minute to the next is truly a joke.

There was no way for David to know what events God may have been orchestrating in preparation for him becoming king. Even looking back, it would be difficult for us to hazard solid guesses. At the same time, we can see that this is a possibility.

That same possibility exists today. God could be leaving someone that is opposed to Him in an authority position while He arranges for specific events to come to pass. While we may not know what those events are, we can trust Him to handle it, right?

4 – God Was Teaching The Israelites

If you go all the way back to 1 Samuel 8, you will see that Israel did not have a king. Samuel was the leader of Israel as what was then called a judge, but as Samuel aged, the people demanded a king. Even though God had Samuel warn them about rejecting Him for a king, they would not listen.

Saul was the first king of the Israelite people. It is certainly possible that God was teaching them a lesson about following a king rather than putting their whole trust in Him. Maybe Saul remained on the throne longer so they could feel the pain of poor leadership?

Application Today?

If this lesson is applied today, then we who are under the authority of poor leadership are also the ones needing to learn our lesson. Is God leaving non-believing leaders in place so that we will turn to Him for the true leadership? If so, are we learning the lesson?

Have you experienced poor leadership? What did you do?

What did you learn from the experience?

What additional reasons for God to allow poor leadership do you see?