If you look back at the leaders in history who have been president of the United States, you’ll see a wide variety of gentlemen who had various moral shortfalls and made decisions that weren’t very godly. Many of our presidents made decisions based on fear (some of these fears were extremely real), and certainly, popularity and a majority approval have always been significant concerns for them.
In thinking about some of the flaws of recent U.S. presidents, we can see:
- The indiscretion of President Clinton with Monica Lewinsky
- The duplicitous choices President Nixon made, resulting in the Watergate Scandal
- The thousands of Japanese Americans who were imprisoned by President FDR during WW2 simply because they had Japanese ancestry
- The time President Johnson relieved himself on a Secret Service agent and excused his action by telling the agent that he was the President, so that was his prerogative
There is ample history to identify and explore the myriads of flaws and shortcomings of our United States presidents, and we could live in that rabbit hole for a very long time. Instead, let’s consider some of the flawed leaders in the Bible and recognize some important lessons.
To begin, Moses was a truly incredible leader for Israel. I am amazed at his strength in defying Pharoah to liberate Israel from slavery. I’m all the more impressed with his leadership of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. My highest regard for Moses is found in this verse:
“Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.” (Exodus 33:11a)
In spite of all of these accolades, Moses failed when he struck the rock in the wilderness after becoming exasperated with the Israelites and their continual rebellion, complaining and obstinance. Although Moses struck the rock and disobeyed God, he was, nevertheless, an extremely effective leader with heaps of noteworthy accomplishments.
Another flawed leader in the Bible is the first king of Israel: Saul. He was chosen and anointed by God (1 Samuel 10). Furthermore, God validated his leadership with several supernatural signs, and he was supported and given leadership training by the prophet Samuel. Despite all of these investments, Saul routinely failed in his leadership. He failed because he was afraid, and he was jealous. Thus, he disobeyed Samuel’s directives, and he failed to repent from ultimately disobeying God. From my point of view, Saul was a very sad man because of his refusal to repent, humble himself and renew his loyalty and commitment to God.
The final flawed leader we’ll look at in this blog is King David. You can find heaps of content in the Old Testament about David’s life, walk with God, struggles, successes, etc. Some of the things he is most well-known for in our modern world are his success against Goliath, the Philistine giant (the proverbial David and Goliath underdog story), and the seventy plus psalms he wrote. However, David was a flawed leader, as we read about in 2 Samuel 11-22 with the Bathsheba situation. What’s noteworthy for David in his failure is that, upon being confronted by Nathan the prophet about his sin, David admitted his wrongdoing and repented. You can read his words and thoughts about his failure in Psalm 51.
In thinking about flawed leaders, it’s clear that this isn’t a new development in the course of human history. Truly, all humans are flawed, and each of us has had more than a few failures in our life. But let’s remember that God can use leaders in spite of their failures, and let’s continue to pray for our leaders during and even after their failures.
