The Trademark of God's Leaders - Nehemiah A Focused and Perceptive Leader

 This is Chuck Rapp with Multiply, a podcast to provide a word of encouragement for village church planters and leaders.

Today we continue our series on the leadership qualities of Nehemiah. There is so much we can learn – and seek to follow – from this Old Testament leader. 

Today’s podcast is taken from Chapter 6, and it includes some of my favorite dialog in the entire book.  

We read about the attacks and distractions from Sanballat and Tobiah (vs 1).  They requested a meeting with Nehemiah, and I just love his response!  “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down.” (3b) In other words, he’s saying that he’s working on a God-directed and God-sized task, and he doesn’t have time for their trickery. “Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.”  (4)   

Nehemiah and godly leaders are focused.  They are able to stay with a task until it is completed.  They discern the distractions and schemes of the enemy.  Verses 6:5-8 tell us more.  Sanballat sent a fifth message to which Nehemiah replied, “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.”  I love that reply to Nehemiah’s adversary.  

Good and godly leaders must know when, and how, to remain focused on their highest priorities.  Like Nehemiah, we need the personal discipline to avoid both intended and unintended distractions.  Now, realistically, there are times when we are focused on a high priority task and legitimate interruptions occur.  It may be a family emergency.  It could be an urgent ministry situation.  Effective leaders learn how to step away briefly, deal with the urgent matter, and then return to what is most important.   

In our story, Nehemiah’s adversaries were persistent as is the enemy of our souls.  More threats followed in verses 11-13, to which Nehemiah responded “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!" I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.”  

Nehemiah was also perceptive.   As a missionary friend of mine frequently says, godly leaders “understand what is really going on when what’s going on is going on.”   In other words, godly leaders see – and perceive – what is taking place beyond what is obviously apparent to one’s eyes.  

This has been a word of encouragement for Village Church Planters and leaders.