The making of a king—what are the
parameters, evaluation points, and guidelines that we use for developing and
recognizing leadership? Is leadership really
about character, experience, policy-making, and poise under fire? Or does leadership really just come down to
money, beauty, and stature?
Journalist Kayla
Webley posits a thought on the subject in her article coinciding with the 50th
anniversary of the first televised presidential debate. “On the morning of September 26, 1960, John
F. Kennedy was a relatively unknown senator from Massachusetts. He was young and Catholic—neither of which
helped his image—and facing off against an incumbent. But by the end of the evening, he was a star.
[…]
Nixon, pale and underweight from a recent hospitalization, appeared
sickly and sweaty, while Kennedy appeared calm and confident. As the story goes, those who listened to the
debate on the radio thought Nixon had won.
But those listeners were in the minority…. Those that watched the debate on TV thought
that Kennedy was the clear winner. Many
say Kennedy won the election that night” (“How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed
the World,” Time, September 23,
2010).
“It’s one of those
unusual points on the timeline of history where you can say things changed very
dramatically—in this case, in a single night” says Alan Schroeder, media
historian and associate professor at Northwestern University, Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High
Risk TV.
I agree with what
Webley wrote in her Time magazine
article, except her title … on a subtle level.
I don’t think the Nixon-Kennedy debate changed the world, really. The world has always operated on the premise
that the choicest, most handsome, and tallest specimens are the natural
leaders. True, television gave us a
wider audience—exponentially wider with the Internet—but the truth is that
humanity has always tended to pick its leaders this way; with its eyes, not
with its brain, and certainly not with its soul.
As we step into
the arena of the inner world, however, we can see that this is not the way God
operates. God does not select as man
selects. God does not evaluate as man
evaluates. God does not see as man sees.
Whether we are
making a king, selecting a president, deciding upon a spouse, hiring a CEO, or valuing
a friend how much “stock” do we place in the outside at the expense of the
inside of a person? “Man looks at the
outward appearance, but God looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). God gives primacy to the heart—Hebrew: lavav, the heart, the mind, the inner
person—every time! Do we?
Do we know this subcutaneous
region? Are we cultivating life in this
internal acre of soil? Are we connecting
at this level with the people we meet, work with, marry, parent, and
minister? Do we know the anatomy of this
far more important sphere of our personhood?
We don’t get a
glimpse very often at the inner gears of someone’s heart—not to mention our own
heart. But nestled inside the narratives
of Saul and David we are given a rare view of the anatomy of the inner person,
especially in the process of selecting, recognizing, and following a leader. It is telling that the only qualifications
for leadership given to Saul at his anointing were that he was “choice,”
“handsome,” and “head and shoulders taller than the rest” (1 Samuel 9:2). The Nixon-Kennedy Debate didn’t change the
world. The Nixon-Kennedy Debate
demonstrated that there is nothing new under the sun.
