The Book of Nehemiah is often looked at as a book that gives direction to people on how to lead in a godly manner. As I have worked through Nehemiah it is easy to find many great leadership principles and at the same time it is challenging to look at how those principles can be applied to our very own life. As a caution, we do need to see the principles in a light so to as grow ourselves, as opposed to finding faults as we look at the leadership of others.
The opening verses in chapter one lay out the very first principle regarding leadership. That principle, which we will spend our time on here, is prayer. Now, it could be easy to say, “I am not a leader in my church nor at work, so perhaps I can skip past Nehemiah.” I would encourage you not to do that as God may well have the plan of leadership for you at some point, or as you go about your daily life in what you believe is not a position of leadership, you may well have others looking at you. Are others looking at you to see how you react in certain situations? Are others looking at you as they know you follow Christ and wish to see an example of Christian living? Not all leaders carry titles and positions. The great ones lead as Christ did. He served humbly and lived a life of loving God the Father and loving the people who were around Him.
The word that strikes me as I read the first chapter of Nehemiah is beseech. Looking at some Bible translations I find that this is not the word used. I use the NASB as my choice of translation as I believe that it is far more accurate and it is a “word for word” translation based on the original language (in this case the Hebrew, as we are in the Old Testament). Beseeching the Lord in our prayer lives is what I want to focus on from Nehemiah. As we see the word used in the Bible it gives us the idea of the begging of God, or the thought of saying to God, “I pray now!” Psalm 116:4 uses the word as well, and in a Psalm that thanks the Lord, we find the psalmist writing, “O’ Lord I beseech You, save my life!” What can we learn and apply from reading the opening chapter of Nehemiah?
Do our prayers sometimes sound half-hearted or even lacking faith? What if in our prayers we went to the Lord and truly poured out our hearts. Poured out our hearts for family, for community, for our church, or for our communities? I know that we do have these petitions that we bring to God. I certainly am not telling anybody how to pray, but rather offering a thought on a biblical model of prayer that we see in Nehemiah. Cry out to the Lord with all your heart, beseech Him with the inner most of your feelings. God hears, God acts, God loves you!