Our Leaders Are Frail Humans – Pray For Them To Seek God

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(1) I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people, (2) for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.  (3) This is good, and pleases God our Savior, (4) who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.’ (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

There have been rumors of Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, recently suffering a stroke. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has been rumored for some time to have a form of cancer, and Kim Jong Un, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, is thought to be suffering from hypertension and diabetes due to morbid obesity. Our own President, Joe Biden, has appeared throughout his one term as possibly suffering from a form of dementia as well as simply being old.

Those who lead us, though we perhaps think of them as stronger or smarter than the average person, are not; they are as human as we are. Only through circumstance and happenstance did they become powerful figureheads, which of course as Romans 13:1 and Proverbs 8:15-16 note, it is God who provides for these men (and occasionally women) to rule over their people. As stated before, people get the leadership they desire, and they get the leadership they deserve, and unfortunately the people under authoritarian rule are getting just that – a form of rule that is absent of God in their lives. Can that change?

Paul, in writing his first letter to Timothy, calls upon him (and us) to pray for all people, including our political leaders.  Paul makes it a point to specify those in authority for our prayers, as Paul (and many of us) understands that the majority of the people globally do not have the power or the means to select who rules over them secularly. 

Even in the US, an oligarchy of elites have developed where our leaders are derived from; a club that we as ‘common folk’ can’t easily join.  But Paul knew that God appoints all leaders, as given to Samuel in appointing Saul in 1 Samuel 9, and after Saul’s reign would end in appointing David in 1 Samuel 16, and through a dream telling Nebuchadnezzar God appoints leaders in Daniel 4:17.  Paul in Romans reiterates this in Romans 13:1, that those who oversee others are appointed by God.

God does not always appoint leaders that will follow Him; God either appoints people to set the example (like David) or be made into an example, like the Pharaoh Rameses facing Moses whose heart is continued to harden (and may never have softened), or ole’ Neb himself, who kept trying to set himself up as a God, until he went insane per God’s will, and when he finally turned to God was cured (Daniel 4:28-37).  Nevertheless, God wants us to righteously obey our leaders (up until obeying them would disobey God), and pray for them.  Every leader God has appointed is human and sins, and errors in judgment. Leaders get sick or injured, and die.  We need to pray for them, for their health and for them to be led or to have someone provide to them the Gospel of Christ. 

What of those, like Xi of China, Putin of Russia, or Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who are leading their people to war, mass incarceration, and even genocide (as in the case of the Uighurs in Northwest China)?  Can we pray that they are replaced by someone better for the people?  We can pray for the Lord to remove these leaders, in His will and in His way.  In 1 Samuel, we see that Saul becomes a poor leader, more one of self-serving than the Israelites and of God.  God in turn replaces Saul with David. 

We should not want ill will to fall upon these leaders; however, God may replace them in any form or fashion, including illness or death, even a violent ending of their reign (like Saul).  Our petition for these dictators is for the Lord to (1) soften their hearts, have them become more caring for their people, and provide them an avenue to hear and accept the Lord and repent, or (2) to remove them from their office in God’s will and in ways of His choosing. 

I pray that Xi, Putin, and Kim heal and become, like Paul, a Godly missionary in their own realms, or for them to be replaced by someone who is more humane and caring and who allows God’s Word to flourish.  For the US, I pray for President Biden’s comfort and may he turn to the Lord for Salvation, and for our next President to be Godly and lead by Godly principles. It may not happen the way we wish it to be, but it will be always in the way God wills it to be.