Moses, the servant of the LORD, and the Israelites conquered them. And Moses the servant of the LORD gave their land to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh to be their possession. – Joshua 12:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 16, 2012): Joshua 12

As we get closer to a Presidential election, I have to admit that I find a lot of the discussion and the debate amusing. But honesty probably would not be that entertaining – or motivating for those that want to vote. Part of my problem is that I know that very little of what they say is the reason why we are electing them. The world is so interconnected that it is the height of hubris to think that any one leader of any nation – including the United States – can have the effect that candidates often proclaim. As much as the candidates seem to proclaim something different, much of what will happen in the next few years is already in place – it has been placed there by preceding governments and by events that are happening on the world stage.

That is not to say that it does not matter who is living in the White House – because it does. But it is for reasons that we seem to minimize. The President is most valuable in times of crisis. It is then that he or she can make the biggest impact. It is during the 9/11’s and the economic collapses that we need a strong leader. But those times are impossible to anticipate – and we really do not want them to come, and that makes them impossible to campaign on. The only two questions that we really need answered in a campaign is – how well do you function when your world is falling apart and how are you going to spend our money. For most other issues, we will not know the effectiveness of President, and what he prepared the nation to accomplish, until long after the President has left office. The great political leaders are remembered for the things that they set up to happen after they left office.

Joshua would be the political leader that would take the Canaan on behalf of Israel, but how good a leader he was is really questionable. He successfully moved a nation through the transition from the desert into being a nation. He got each of the tribes settled in their areas. He led well in the military and administrative tasks that he needed to complete. But he failed in one very basic area. Unlike Moses, it does not appear that he trained anyone to take over from him. Moses had Joshua. And a lot of what happened during Joshua’s reign, Moses had set in motion. In other words, what Joshua achieved, Moses had set up for him. But because Joshua did not seem to prepare for the leaders that would come after him, we will never know how good a leader he really was.

Leadership is seldom about the now. It is about the way that we set up for the future. And as far as President’s go, our interconnected world needs a President that really understands that.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Joshua 13