Eyring - The Lord Leads His Church - October 2017

President Eyring speaks about the fundimentals of the Lord's church here on earth.

• First, Jesus Christ is the head of the Church in all the earth.
  
• Second, He leads His Church today by speaking to men called as prophets, and He does it through revelation.
• Third, He gave revelation to His prophets long ago, still does, and will continue to do so.
• Fourth, He gives confirming revelation to those who serve under the leadership of His prophets.

He speaks about the need for faith in our lives to believe that the Lord is leading His church, that he calls people to leadership positions that are imperfect but gives them the keys to succeed, and that the Lord doesn't make mistakes in those He calls.

• It takes faith to believe that the resurrected Lord is watching over the daily details of His kingdom. It takes faith to believe that He calls imperfect people into positions of trust. It takes faith to believe that He knows the people He calls perfectly, both their capacities and their potential, and so makes no mistakes in His calls.

He understands that some people will struggle with the weaknesses that some leaders have but we need to trust that the Lord is in charge and will make it possible for overcome the weaknesses of those He calls to service.

• For a leader to succeed in the Lord’s work, the people’s trust that he is called of God must override their view of his infirmities and mortal weaknesses.

Each leader in the church has their good traits and the bad ones.  We can focus on the good or the bad characteristics of those that are called.  We should strive to look at the servant of God the way the Savior sees them and not focus on the things that they struggle with.

• Your leader in the Lord’s Church may seem to you weak and human or may appear to you strong and inspired. The fact is that every leader is a mixture of those traits and more. What helps servants of the Lord who are called to lead us is when we can see them as the Lord did when He called them.
  
• The Lord sees His servants perfectly. He sees their potential and their future. And He knows how their very nature can be changed. He also knows how they can be changed by their experiences with the people they will lead.
  

Trust and faith is needed from those that leader and from those that are led by imperfect people.  When we sustain someone in the church, we should consider the faith it takes from us to follow them as they are inspired of the Lord.

• There is a thread that binds us to the Lord in our service. It runs from wherever we are called to serve in the kingdom, up through those called to preside over us in the priesthood, and to the prophet, who is bound to the Lord. It takes faith and humility to serve in the place to which we are called, to trust that the Lord called us and those who preside over us, and to sustain them with full faith.

I have been part of wards in the church where there was a lack of faith on the parts of the members to support fully the Bishop and those that were called to lead the ward.  What I have come to realize is that the problem was not the Bishop, it was the lack of faith in the Savior that caused these members to question the calling that had been issued.  I hope we will look at ourselves and focus on the faith that is needed to support our local church leaders.  No one is perfect, and we should not expect perfection out of imperfect people.