Praying for wisdom in leaders

In Church on Sunday we prayed that “God would give wisdom to our leaders”.

But why put that on God when in democratic countries it is really in our hands?

Firstly we could elect wise people instead of electing people whose abilities or wisdom we simply do not know.

Secondly in a democracy the people we elect are not really  “leaders “ in the sense that monarchs or dictators are. They are followers. Even some dictators are followers in order to govern more easily. Take Pontius Pilate’s judgement of Jesus based on what “the crowd” wanted, rather than the law.

In a democracy the elected politicians must do what active voters want because if they do not, they stand a good chance of being voted out of office.

So, instead of praying for God to do the work for us, we could pay more attention to the individuals we elect to office to see that we elect wise people to office. We waste our votes when we elect those whose qualities we do not know.

To help us, FairGO has for decades provided a Politicians Honour Roll of the MPs who best respond to Votergrams. Voters Network enables voters to rate how well  or badly politicians are doing what those voters want.

God has given us democracy through the efforts of some great Christians. Let’s use it to have governments that at least work for the people more instead of making their priorities as follows:

1 themselves and their families
2 their parties
3 donors to their parties
4 professional lobbyists
5 voters

It is in our hands. As long as we refuse to take an active role, those who do will dominate.

FairGO’s experience shows that when we work with all of our elected representatives in parliament, congress or assembly, regardless of political parties, we the people get most of what we want as long as it is fair to others too.

Our rule should be to treat our politicians as we would like to be treated ourselves, politely and persuasively, giving more praise than criticism, for they are just ordinary people like the rest of us, with a very difficult job.