Just when leadership seems most needed, it seems most under attack.

In the US, President Bush—with his poll numbers down and therefore his ability to get things done hampered—is struggling to find solutions to the Iraq war and other global situations.

In Israel—with Ariel Sharon sidelined due to serious health problems, and the recent Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections—the newly elected prime minister faces a very difficult and dangerous road.

And in Iraq, it’s getting harder for anyone to stay alive long enough to be considered a leader of any kind, let alone one who is both able and honorable.

Should all of this push us to despair? Not for a minute. But it should move us to prayer. It should impel us to recall there’s a spiritual basis for leadership—and it's our job to keep that in view, regardless of who’s in office at the moment.

Recall the adversities some of the Biblical leaders faced, and the spiritual resources that reinforced their leadership as they and their people triumphed over those adversities and safely crossed oceans of opposition.

Consider Moses—slow of speech, running from demands, seemingly marked for anonymity. Then something out of the infinite claimed him and revealed within him the divinely derived qualities needed to become one of the greatest leaders of all time—qualities such as vision, wisdom, courage, and perhaps most of all, a willingness to follow God’s leading.

At a key moment in Moses’ long journey to the Promised Land, God said to him, “Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee.” Here was a divine commission for Moses to lead.

But that’s not all. God did not just give him marching orders. He also provided Moses with something more: an angel to go before him. Perhaps that hints at an ingredient of thought—the willingness to follow—that makes any leader a better one.

The willingness to follow suggests the capacity to listen and be humbly attentive. The willingness to follow the leadings of God, immortal Mind, tends to counterbalance any characteristic—such as shortsighted impulsiveness—that might lead one astray, and that even an earnest leader might unknowingly succumb to.

No wonder Moses’ human foibles and frailties didn’t, in the final analysis, prevent him from becoming a great leader. No wonder we still cherish his story, savor his victories, seek to model ourselves on his example.

Mary Baker Eddy, in her primary work on Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, writes, “Moses advanced a nation to the worship of God in Spirit instead of matter, and illustrated the grand human capacities of being bestowed by immortal Mind.”

Moses’ willingness to follow the Divine accentuated and amplified those “grand human capacities of being” in him. Could those same angel messages guide today’s leaders forward and help to magnify their own good capacities? Absolutely.

But what’s the role of the majority of us, who have no political aspirations and don’t want even a nonpolitical leadership role?

In a word: prayer. It’s not a matter of aimlessly waiting on God to send more angels. Our task, our prayer, can be more proactive. We can affirm that it’s within the true nature of each individual to follow God’s leading. And then we can make that affirmation authentic by demonstrating our own willingness to follow divine direction.

Such affirmation is powerful prayer. It tends to buttress the capacities of whoever is in high office much more than a criticism-laced petition like, “Dear God, please make this dullard follow You.”

On occasion, I've been disappointed—even angered—by decisions made by politicians I have respected and trusted. Whether or not my perception was a good analysis of the situation, such feelings definitely do not lead to good prayer. Eventually, I had to face my own need to humbly follow God’s leading, and trust that He, not any particular human being is in control.

As we genuinely follow God, our prayers for better leadership will have the ring of truth to them. And leaders everywhere are blessed, enveloped by a mental and spiritual atmosphere that, at least in some tiny degree, inclines us all toward willingness to listen to the Divine.

All of us, leaders and non-leaders alike, are being nudged spiritually toward a larger capacity to follow God’s angel leadings. And as we respond to this nudging, we find that we’re making wiser, more farsighted decisions.

Following God’s leading:

Science and Health

200:4

King James Bible

Ex. 32:34 (to 2nd :)