Nehemiah 6: A time to persevere

Major Darren Shaw highlights how Nehemiah is discerning, decisive and direct in following God’s plan.

Key text

• Nehemiah 6:1–16

If you have been involved in a construction project, whether large or small, you will know how fraught with pitfalls, budget-busting mistakes and delays they can be. Even if you’ve never had any direct experience, just watching a couple of episodes of Channel 4’s Grand Designs might be enough to put you off for life. In each episode there are metaphorical spanners in the works: obstinate neighbours, council planners, adverse weather conditions, relationship tensions and failing health. These unforeseen barriers build up faster than the walls themselves.

It’s astonishing that Nehemiah was able to complete such an ambitious and nationally significant rebuild while facing antagonism on all sides. How did he withstand the constant opposition and community turmoil while managing his own growing list of responsibilities? Where did his unshakeable perseverance come from?

Pause and reflect

• What is God asking you to build up in your life, or in your community?
• What might prevent you from starting, continuing or completing this task?

Nehemiah and crew are on the cusp of completing the ‘great project’ (v3). When his enemies receive news of this progress, they send a message to Nehemiah in an attempt to lure him out (see vv1 and 2). On the face of it, their request for a meeting could have seemed perfectly reasonable – an opportunity for diplomacy, perhaps.

However, Nehemiah doesn’t see it that way. Where does his discernment come from?

In verses 1 to 4 of chapter 1, we find Nehemiah engaging in an intense season of prayer and fasting to prepare him for the exacting season of pressure and responsibility ahead.

A divine design was put in Nehemiah’s heart (see Nehemiah 2:12), which means that, when the pressure starts to build, Nehemiah doesn’t have to make any new decisions. It’s well known in behavioural science that human willpower is a finite resource – we often run out of it when we need it most. However, God prepared the ground for Nehemiah’s tenacious stance by giving him a clear purpose. Standing on this foundation, Nehemiah can see clearly enough to be decisive and direct in all his dealings.

Pause and reflect

• God has a purpose for you. How clear are you about what that is?
• How might you follow Nehemiah’s example to discern what the ‘one thing’ is and avoid distraction?

Nehemiah’s adversaries make three more attempts to isolate him, which he resists. His unflinching stance forces them to up the stakes.

Their fifth attempt is a thinly veiled threat of public defamation and royal reprisals. Nehemiah’s typically blunt riposte – ‘you are just making it up’ (v8) – tells them just how unruffled he is by their tactics. He might come across as stubborn and abrupt, however to others he could be considered tenacious and refreshingly direct.

Pause and reflect

• What character traits do you have that God could use for his glory?
• How might Nehemiah’s approach help you to persevere through difficult seasons without giving up?

The pivotal verse in our study passage, and perhaps the whole story, is verse 9. Sanballat and his colleagues do all they can to chip away the resolve of Nehemiah and his fellow workers – ‘They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed”.’ Their fear-mongering intentions roundly backfire, as they only serve to strengthen Nehemiah’s resolve. With a clear view of God’s divine design, Nehemiah prays in his direct and decisive manner: ‘Now strengthen my hands’ (v9).

Not yet knowing they are beaten, Nehemiah’s antagonists try one last, devious throw of the dice (see vv10–14). In a bid to get Nehemiah to discredit himself by fleeing to the Temple, they hire an inside man. Once again, by refusing to step down, Nehemiah is enabled to be discerning, decisive and direct. I can imagine Nehemiah having his room covered in Post-It parchments inscribed with those three words!

Pause and reflect

• How could you use Nehemiah’s example to ripen the fruit of perseverance within you and overcome the obstacles in your way?

Then, in Nehemiah’s typically abrupt fashion, verse 15 simply says: ‘So the wall was completed ... in 52 days.’ Done! The wall might be complete, but this chapter of the story isn’t finished. The reversal that we noticed in verse 9 is seen in full effect in verse 16 – although his enemies conspire to discourage Nehemiah and his fellow workers, the outcome is vastly different: ‘All the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realised that this work had been done with the help of our God.’

Nehemiah’s supernaturally sustained perseverance not only builds a physical wall, but also paints a spiritual mural with a message for all to see. The enemy’s intent to intimidate and oppose rebounds from these restored walls with full force. It reminds me of the words of Joseph in Genesis 50:20 – ‘You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.’

Nehemiah’s example shows us that God’s divine design prevails where our merely ‘grand designs’ may falter and fail. Perhaps Nehemiah would have appreciated the apostle Paul’s words in Philippians 1:6: ‘He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’