Sirach 10:20. "Among brothers their leader is worthy of honor, and those who fear the Lord are worthy of honor in his eyes."

We cannot all be leaders, but we can all fear the Lord and be worthy of honor in our leaders' eyes. The Fourth Commandment includes honoring those in positions of authority over us because God knows that in order for his people to flourish, we need order, structure, and leaders. He gives us leaders we need, or lets us have the leaders we want, depending on how closely we are trying to follow Him. Even if we have a bad leader, and we often do, we are to honor him or her as best we can. Doing so shows that we "fear the Lord," and it helps accomplish His plan. It also is truly subversive and works towards much that we don't see, as I wrote about in The Subversive Power of Faith.

Right now, I think we have too much pride to do this properly. We have too many people who are certain they know the minds and hearts of others, and feel self-righteously smarter, better, and more capable than the leaders we have in place. This is contributing to the chaos and societal breakdown we see all around us. If we would instead set our eyes on the goal of preserving our country, our Church, our way of life, and God's laws for future generations, we would see the benefit of trying to live peacefully under whatever leadership God has allowed there to be in place, understanding that God is the leader of all, and He has a plan which will come to fruition.

No one becomes our leader without God's permission, so there is something to be learned and gained from even having bad leadership. It may be learning the path of peaceful resistance, or ways of correcting our leaders' wrongs in a peaceful manner. These things are our jobs, and this is where we can exercise our leadership tendencies properly. If we live in society in this way, in this fear of the Lord, we are still able to work towards justice and peace. In fact, those things are much easier to accomplish when we are not in a state of cold (or, God forbid, hot) war with our leaders and fellow men. And when we live this way, people will come to see, eventually (after we get through being misunderstood), that our way is best for everyone in the long run. We will be "worthy of honor" in their eyes, just as Sirach promises.