Isaiah prophesied of a chaotic time when no one would be willing to serve as a leader:
When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand:
In that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: make me not a ruler of the people.
Isaiah 3:6-7; see also 2 Nephi 13:6-7
Why this aversion to leadership? Because no one wants to be captain of the Titanic. In Isaiah’s scenario, circumstances are so bad that the would-be leader has no hope of success. Who would want to be responsible for an inevitable catastrophe?
And there’s another possible dimension to this story: Chaos and anarchy are not only failures of leadership but also failures of followership. If you are going to lead a group of people, you’ll want some confidence that the group is leadable, that they are willing to accept direction, that they can be persuaded when difficult decisions need to be made or when differences of opinion need to be resolved.
The Book of Mormon describes a time when a nation became ungovernable. Nephi, who had served as chief judge for nine years, decided to step down. He was tired of dealing with the inappropriate behavior of his people, and he decided to dedicate his time to preaching the gospel, as his great-grandfather had done fifty-nine years earlier. (See Alma 4:15-20.) Here is how Mormon described Nephi’s people at this time:
As their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted.
Yea, and this was not all; they were a stiffnecked people, insomuch that they could not be governed by the law nor justice, save it were to their destruction.
Helaman 5:2-3
The most poignant phrase in that passage to me is this: “They could not be governed.” We all love freedom, but we also recognize that living and working with other people requires us to voluntarily curtail some of our desires and to respect the beliefs and opinions of others. Anyone who participates in a collective effort must subordinate some of their preferences to the decisions of the group. If you don’t do that well, you’ll struggle to collaborate. If you don’t do that at all, you’re pretty much on your own.
I’ve been thinking about governability today because of current events in the United States. This week, for the first time in the history of our nation, the House of Representatives voted to remove their Speaker from office. To their credit, they followed their own rules to make the change, and they will surely continue to follow their established procedures as they seek to install a new Speaker, but the event is still troubling. Choosing a leader and then following his or her direction is pretty fundamental. If you can’t do that, you’re going to have a hard time getting anything else done.
What is the alternative? Becoming “fitly framed together.”
The apostle Paul described how the church of Jesus Christ operates in his epistle to the Ephesians. The Savior calls on people to serve in different roles: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, and so on. (See Ephesians 4:11.) As we each fulfill our roles with humility and respect for each other, we become a body “fitly joined together” (Ephesians 4:16), or as he says in another part of the epistle, we become a temple “fitly framed together” (Ephesians 2:21). We can accomplish much more as a unified team than as a scattered group of individuals. Paul says that “every joint…maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16).
The Savior revealed the following truth to the prophet Joseph Smith:
That which is governed by law is also preserved by law and perfected and sanctified by the same.
That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself…cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment.
Doctrine and Covenants 88:34-35
Today, I will strive to be governable. I will recognize the importance of subordinating my desires to the good of the communities I am part of, including my family, my work team, and the church. I will also encourage my elected representatives to model appropriate behavior, being civil to those they disagree with, and prioritizing the needs of the nation above their own personal ambitions.