As believers in the Lord, we all aspire to have these words said to us by our heavenly Father: “well done, good and faithful servant… enter into your master’s rest” (Matthew 25:23). This is honourable and we should seek this praise from our Lord. However, to attain such a praise is not an easy task as we quickly find out from our failures and lack as sinful people. What I love about the word of God is that it is filled with encouragements to us who are striving to run the race marked out for us. God in His goodness ensured we had countless stories to stir us up and teach us that it is possible to strive for excellence because some have done that and have succeeded. Continuing in my reading of the book of Nehemiah, certain character traits deserve to be highlighted for our edification. Indeed, Nehemiah was an ordinary man. He was not a priest or anything of the sort. He did not belong to the tribe of Levites which means he did not and could not hold any responsibility when it came to the temple of God. Despite these apparent “limitations”, God used him mightily for His work. I believe from the get-go; Nehemiah teaches us that “titles” and “positions” are not what make a man nor are they what qualifies you for service before the living God rather obedience and a love for Him do. Based on his life, I would like to draw four characteristics that we too can emulate or that are needed in order to finish strong and hear the praise we long for from our Father.
- Love for God
Although Nehemiah was ordinary, he was set apart. His devotion, dedication and love to his God made all the difference. These can be inferred from his actions. First, when Nehemiah hears a report about the state of Jerusalem, he is distraught and goes into a period of mourning coupled with prayer and fasting. The content of his prayer gives us an insight into the heart of this man and help us understand where he was. We see that Nehemiah knew the God of his fathers as the covenant keeping God and a God of love. We also see that Nehemiah knew the Law of God which means he had spent time studying it. He makes references to the instructions God had spoken to Moses concerning the keeping of His commandments (Nehemiah 1:8-9). Nehemiah understood the character of God who is Holy and does not tolerate sin of any kind. All these increased his love for his God otherwise, he would not have been heartbroken about the state of Jerusalem. Because he loved God, he wanted the place where God had once dwelled to be thriving hence his desire to rebuild the city’s wall. He wanted to return to Jerusalem; his heart was in Jerusalem. This is also what we see in his attitude before the King under whom he was working. Does your love for God make you sad when you see the state of the world today? Does your devotion to the Father make you love the things He loves (justice, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, love, peace, etc.) and hate the things he hates (injustice, debauchery, idolatry, gluttony, lie, etc.)? Are you able, like Nehemiah to identify so closely with a problem that is on God’s mind to the point of gearing yourself to fixing it? If not, be encouraged, it is possible to be like that. After all, Nehemiah was like you and I, he did not start like this. His love for God grew as he consistently and diligently drew closer to the Father through the reading of the word and its application. My encouragement to you is this, draw closer to the Lord, He has given us His word. Let us begin there. Moreover, unlike Nehemiah, we have the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth and reveals what we do not understand to us. Let us strive to grow into knowing God more.
2. Management
The second character trait Nehemiah has that we can emulate to finish strong is good management. As soon as Nehemiah got his marching orders from the Lord through the King Artaxerxes, he went on his journey to Jerusalem without delay. In fact, Nehemiah was already prepared, as I mentioned in my previous post, he had been very proactive into finding out what would be needed for his journey. This is an aspect of good management. Nehemiah is an example of what a good manager should do: be proactive instead of waiting for things to be done. Moreover, Nehemiah displayed a focus that only reminded me of Christ. Indeed, when he arrived in Jerusalem, he first took the time to survey the area and mark out where the damage had been done. It is also important to note that Nehemiah did this in secret. It is only after he had finished his surveying of the land that he told his fellow Jews about what the Lord had placed in his heart to do. This exercise helped Nehemiah plan properly what areas to begin working on and what groups could be doing what. As a matter of fact, we see Nehemiah as a great delegator; he gathered the troops and put them to work. Furthermore, Nehemiah supervised the work and ensured everything went according to the plan. Hence, he was able to not pay attention to distractors like Sanballat and Tobiah and detracted their evil plan to destroy the work he and his countrymen were doing. Even when these enemies sought to stop the progress of the work by summoning Nehemiah, he would not respond and continued to do the work of rebuilding the wall of the city of Jerusalem. It seems like nothing could deter him from his mission. This is different from what we see with Ezra who had the work stopped because of the oppression of their enemies. Unlike Nehemiah, Ezra let the words of their enemies have prevalence over the word of God through the decree they had received from King Cyrus which halted the rebuilding of the temple for many years until they were encouraged by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to continue rebuilding (Ezra 6:14).
3. Alertness
Another characteristic we see in Nehemiah that is needed to finish a task well is alertness. Nehemiah as a leader was extremely alert. He paid attention to everything that pertained to the task at hand. He knew of incoming threats, and he had means to fight the threat coming. In chapter 4, we read that “Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs and the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod plotted together to come up and fight against Jerusalem”. In addition to this, the people of Judah themselves were worn out and afraid (Nehemiah 4:10-12). However, Nehemiah did not remain passive: he prayed to God and “posted a guard day and night to meet this threat”. Furthermore, being a good leader, Nehemiah encouraged the men and said “don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes” (Nehemiah 4:14). From that day on, every man assigned to work was also guarding the city. This means it took them longer to complete the task, but the end result is that the wall was completed, and their enemies could not attack them because they were alert. Nehemiah teaches us that in the face of adversity, we must be twice as vigilant. Neither Nehemiah nor his men gave themselves any rest. They were in a battle mode and acted accordingly. Nehemiah also teaches us that being alert means to be prepared for whatever comes your way and if the enemy increases his effort to stop you in your track, you have to increase your own efforts to remain steadfast. A good leader is not fainthearted, he must be alert and present for the people.
4. Visionary
The other characteristic that we see in Nehemiah that can be emulated by us is his visionary attitude. When the task of rebuilding the wall was completed, Nehemiah quickly appointed gatekeepers, singers and Levites. He was already thinking about the preservation of the work that was recently completed. It was not enough for him that it was completed, what mattered was that it remained and continued to be used for its purpose. In fact, when the walls were rebuilt, Nehemiah, led by God made a census of the population including the nobles, the officials and the commoners. This goes to show that Nehemiah was thinking long term, so that generations to come would have a history of where they are from and also so that a rebuilding of the city could begin. As a visionary leader, Nehemiah thought of legacy. I believe this is because Nehemiah understood this work was beyond him, it was not just a matter of rebuilding a wall, Nehemiah understood that the impact of the work was lasting. When we work for God, we too must understand that none of what we do for Him is about us irrespective of whether we are the ones “doing” the work or not. We are not the objects of the story, God is. We are his workmanship not the other way around (Ephesians 2:10). With such a view, it is hard to want to control anything because you know it does not belong to you. However, what it helps you do is be diligent and humble with what has been entrusted to you so that you can pass it on to the next generation and tell them to be as good a steward as you were. Nehemiah certainly did that.
I believe leadership is not just for a certain group of people. As children of God on this earth, we have been given something to manage and the effectiveness of our management show how good or bad of a leader we are. This means, the attributes gleaned from the life of Nehemiah can help you in your areas of assignment. Whether you are a stay-at-home mom, a father, a husband, a sister, an employee, a pastor, etc. you have been given something to manage by your Good Father so let that work spur your love for God, manage it well, be alert and be visionary. May the Lord grant you the grace to be faithful and finish well so that you may hear “well done good and faithful servant”. Amen.
A Word Aptly Spoken 