Imperfect Leaders

The final talk of the Priesthood Session of the October 2017 General Conference was given by President Henry B. Eyring and was titled The Lord Leads His Church. In this talk, President Eyring spoke of Priesthood leadership, a topic that would become timely a few months later. He taught that the Lord uses imperfect people (which, as Elder Holland famously remarked, is all He has to work with) to do great things despite their weaknesses. President Eyring said that it takes faith to believe that, and I mostly agree.

It does take faith to accept that God calls imperfect people to serve as leaders in His church, but as Elder Holland reminded us, He could hardly have called anyone else. No one is perfect. All human beings have their flaws, and our leaders are no exception. But rather than criticize their failings, we should strive to work on our own.

Of course, our leaders aren't perfect, but the Lord calls them anyway, and He has His reasons for doing so. Perhaps they have a set of tangentially-related talents that will be of use in their task. Perhaps He put them in those positions to help the develop leadership skills. Or perhaps they truly are perfect for the job, and our imperfect judgement sometimes fails to see that.

One does not need to be perfect in order to be perfectly suited to a task, and one does not need to be perfectly suited to a task in order to be useful to God. I'm confident that God could turn a worthless rock into a priceless sculpture, even if He could only use imperfect chisels to do the sculpting. We are all imperfect. All people have flaws that, in some people's opinions would make them unsuited for the work of the Lord, but the Lord is better at using chisels than people are at evaluating them. If God has called someone to a specific task, we can be confident that He knows how to help them accomplish that task, no matter how inadequate they seem or are. As long as those whom He calls to lead are humble enough to accept His guidance, they can hardly go wrong.

It's easy to criticize, but it's important to have faith, especially as it relates to the Lord's choices. No, the leaders He chooses are not perfect, but His reasons for choosing them are.