At my home church, we’ve been going through a series on Nehemiah called “Built to Last.” The preaching team has done an amazing job walking us through this book and the messages are worth a listen.
I’m stuck about how the book demonstrates the leadership discernment of Nehemiah. It’s fun to view the book through the lens of Nehemiah’s spidey sense.
Spidey sense is that strong sense of something being wrong, dangerous, suspicious, a security situation. Not only does Nehemiah have a supernatural sense of what is wrong, but he almost intuitively knows what he should do next.
I’m convinced this is one of the most important leadership traits that we can ask God for. Spidey sense for a leader is the trigger point for wisdom in the situation, it’s the awareness that the Spirit is both prompting you and calling you to act. As you read through the book look for those phrases that illustrate that God enabled Nehemiah to perceive and understand the situations around him:
“As soon as I heard these words” “The hand of my God that had been upon me for good” “But they intended to do me harm” “For they all wanted to frighten us” “And I understood and saw that God had not sent him”My favorite example is Nehemiah 7:5
“Then my God put it into my heart…”Wow! That is my prayer today. That my relationship with God would be one in which God can lead my thoughts and actions by putting things into my heart. As you see with Nehemiah that came primarily through prayer, fasting, and the reading the Word of God.
