I’ve been watching and listening a lot throughout this past 16 months of ‘COVID.’ One of the things that I have noticed increasing is our distrust of leadership. What I see is that anyone who is in any form of leadership or power seems to have to start by earning trust from people, rather than trust being given to them.

I am reading President Obama’s autobiography at the minute and he said something interesting when he was describing the day of his inauguration. He talks about the hundreds of thousands of people who were lining the streets, excited to see him start his term. He also remembers seeing Bush (outgoing president) protesters lining parts of the route. One of his aides, I believe, told him

“Mr President, you are a like a new car. The moment you leave the showroom your value drops!”

Yikes – who would want to be in politics?

Here’s the truth. I’m not sure what the motivation behind our politicians decisions are. I’m sure at times there should be questions over the motivations of their decisions. Were certain decisions a result of lobbying, political trading or perhaps something more shady than that? Were certain decisions genuine honest decisions based on the research and their best attempt to make the best call for the country? We could apply the same questioning framework to our bosses, pastors, celebrities etc.

The truth is that there probably is a mix of all of those things; there are times it is a genuine call, times it’s a little more political and more beside. We therefore have a choice what we do when people in leadership over us make a call. We can start looking at the call cynically because we are aware that dishonesty can happen…… or we can look at their decisions with trust aware that good can happen.

Unfortunately I think more people are doing the former.

No one wants to be thought of as naive, no one wants to be accused of being a sheep, mindlessly following decision. All of this mixed with past failings in leadership means that cynicism is unfortunately winning. We’d rather start by doubting so that if we are proved right we won’t have egg on our face. I get it but my question is this.

What is starting from cynicism doing to our souls?

Yes we might look smart, yes we won’t look naive, we won’t be caught out and perhaps we’ll be proved right. But what is it doing to us and how will that default position erode other relationships and positions in our lives? What about our relationship with Jesus – are we going to start questioning His motives?

I’ve decided I am going to start with trust.

When I hear a announcement or a policy that I disagree with I want to start from the place of believing that the leaders are trying to make the best call for everyone. From the place of trust I might do something about it, if I feel strongly enough about it. Yes, I could have egg on my face. Yes I might look naive and silly.

But I think I am OK with that if it protects my soul.

What will we choose? What are the effects of that choice? I think our souls need us to answer that question as we move forward.