By Chad Hershberger
This blog post is part of a series on leadership lessons from the prophet Nehemiah.
As we continue our look at leadership through the lens of the book of Nehemiah, we come to Chapter 9 which is all about prayer. This is the longest prayer in the Bible. During this time period, it is a real time of revival, and the people in our story were praying. They would spend about a quarter of the day reading God’s Word and a quarter of the day in worship. After each of their activities, they would pray.
Praying persistently, like our followers in Nehemiah, is a characteristic of a good Christian leader. Jesus modeled this for him as he often went away to pray. Jesus reminded us that whatever we ask for in prayer, we will receive.
Prayer for a leader is two-fold, I think. First, as Jesus told us, we should make our requests known. Praying for what troubles us and what we seek guidance for is important. But I also think it is important to pray in thankfulness to God. Celebrating how we see God’s hand in our work is an important part of a leaders’ prayer life.
Having trouble on what to pray about? Look to Nehemiah for help. In verse four of this chapter, we see them praying about seven things:
- God, the eternal authority.
- God, the creator
- God, who sustains and keeps us
- God, the Sovereign God.
- God, who gives us gifts
- God, who is faithful.
- God, who gives grace.
Commit to regular prayer time as a leader. Pray for your joys and concerns. You may just find that it improves your work life and strengthens your relationship to God.
As we wrap up our series on leadership looking at the book of Nehemiah, it’s probably also appropriate to talk about endings. At the end of this book of the Bible, we see the negative side of things. Problems arise. But the leaders did not allow the problems to get to them. They pressed on for God’s interests.
This reminded me of a leadership lesson I learned from Rev. Michael Cooper-White. Michael served as president of Gettysburg Seminary when I was on the board there. He’s written a few books on leadership and the one I like best is “On a Wing and a Prayer.” In that book, Michael, an amateur pilot, compares leadership to flying a plane.
He relates that the hardest part of flying a plane is the landing. Once you get the plane airborne, it cruises along. But trying to get it to stop is going against what the plane wants to do. So, the last part of flying, the landing, is the toughest.
Michael reminds us that as leaders, we need to land well. When our time with an organization is ending, we need to not “phone it in” but rather have a good landing. I remember in the book being told that a pilot can have hundreds of thousands of good landings. But, if they crash land even once, that will be what they are remembered for.
In Nehemiah, our main character overcomes a lot. And he continues to press on and serve the mission of God, even when their project is coming to a close and people seem to be less interested in the work. As leaders, let us have good landings, and stay on task until the end.
Other entries in this series:
Part 1: Nehemiah and team leadership
Part 2: Building up and creating order out of chaos
Part 3: More lessons from Nehemiah
Part 4: Spiritual care and the rewind