Wednesday
Wednesday
Nehemiah’s Vision
Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.
Nehemiah 2:17
After the restoration of the temple under Zerubbabel and the restoration of the law under Ezra, came the restoration of the city walls under Nehemiah. Nehemiah had a unique role to play in salvation history, that is, in God’s purpose to rehabilitate his people. Although nobody has a similar function today, nevertheless in a secondary sense God does want Christian leaders to develop the leadership qualities that Nehemiah displayed. At least six can be identified.
Firstly, the Christian leader has a clear vision. Vision is compounded of two complementary things, namely a deep dissatisfaction with what is and a clear grasp of what could be. It begins with indignation over the status quo and grows into the earnest quest for an alternative. For example, a journalist wrote of Bobby Kennedy after his assassination in 1968 that “his distinguishing quality was his capacity for … moral outrage. ‘That is unacceptable,’ he said of many conditions that most of us accepted as inevitable…. Poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, prejudice, crookedness, conniving—all such accepted evils were a personal affront to him.” One might say that apathy is the acceptance of the unacceptable, whereas leadership begins with a decisive refusal to do so. How can we tolerate what God finds intolerable?
Secondly, the Christian leader feels deeply about his vision. When Nehemiah heard that the wall of Jerusalem was in ruins and that its gates had been burned down, the news overwhelmed him until God put into his heart what to do. “Come, let us rebuild,” he said (v. 17). It is not enough to see the present situation as displeasing to God and to discern how it could be changed. We must also feel both indignation and compassion. Nehemiah’s grief showed on his face, and the king noticed it.
For further reading: Nehemiah 1:1–4