By Melissa McLaughlin
The story of Nehemiah is one that grabs my heart every time. From beginning to end, I see a man of strength through surrender. Though the concept of surrendered leadership seems a contradiction, when we are surrendered to the Lord, it becomes our greatest strength.
The Story of Nehemiah
Nehemiah’s story took place after the fall of Jerusalem. He was among those taken captive by the Babylonians and served as cupbearer to the king. In chapter one, when Nehemiah was apprised of the severe damage to the wall surrounding Jerusalem, he wept before the Lord in total mournful surrender. His next action step was prayer and fasting. More surrender. We get a glimpse of Nehemiah’s humility through this prayer, steeped in surrender:
Nehemiah 1:5-11 – 5 And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. 7 We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. 8 Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, 9 but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ 10 They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. 11 O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”
Powerful Prayer of Surrender
The weight of power in this prayer is contained in its humble posture because through human surrender, it is inherently built on the strength of God. Nehemiah’s prayer included several areas of surrender:
1.Praise and Thanksgiving – He began with an acknowledgement of God’s greatness and the greatness of His love.
2.Repentance and Confession of Sin – He confessed the sin of his people and the sin in his own life.
3.Claiming God’s righteous judgments and the truth of God’s Word – He agreed with the rightness of God’s judgment over sin in the past and stood on the truth of God’s promises in response to repentance in the future.
4.Calling on God for help – He requested God’s help as he asked the king for permission to leave his duties as cupbearer in order to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem.
Clearly, a surrendered prayer is a powerful prayer.
Facing Opposition Through Prayer
In chapter 2, when Nehemiah was asked by the king why he was so sad, he paused to pray before speaking, a demonstration of his ongoing dependence upon the Lord God.
Nehemiah was granted all he requested of the king, yet he gave God the credit for this accomplishment. More surrender.
As Nehemiah traveled toward Jerusalem, though he met with opposition still he continued on. After arriving there, he began an inspection of the city wall at night, because he had not yet told the people what God laid on his heart. In the quiet of his heart, in the quiet of night, he carried out the work of the Lord. A living illustration of surrender to God’s call.
Once he understood the scope of the damages, he presented his plan to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem to the remnant of Israelites living in the area. As he encouraged the people to take part in this noble task, he again gave glory to God. The people were moved by Nehemiah’s plea and agreed to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem.
As soon as Nehemiah and the remnant of Israelites began to rebuild, opponents from the surrounding area accused them of rebelling against the king. Nehemiah responded not with his own strength, but with the strength of His God.
Opposition Continued
As Nehemiah and the people continued the work, the opposition against them grew steadily stronger. First the outsiders mocked them, stating that the wall wasn’t strong enough to hold a fox. How did Nehemiah respond? With prayer.
Next the antagonists plotted to fight Nehemiah and the workers, so they prayed and set a guard as protection. Prayer and a guard was their corresponding level of protection.
The threats intensified against Nehemiah and the people, so they set up more guards. Nehemiah buoyed their spirits by reminding them of God’s greatness:
Nehemiah 4:14 – “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”
Due to rising hostility, Nehemiah organized half the people to work on construction while the other half held weapons, spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail. Workers carried construction materials in one hand and weapons in the other. They began sleeping inside the city, fully clothed, ready to protect themselves if need be.
More Opposition
As another tactic to halt the wall, their foes extorted extra taxes from the workers. Nehemiah listened to the concerns of the workers, reacted with compassion, rightful anger and honorable actions, bringing an end to this injustice.
Once the wall was of a substantive size, the adversaries tried to lure Nehemiah to an open plain to do him harm. He did not acquiesce nor did he feed into their confrontation. He politely explained that he could not step away from this great work at this time.
Knowing they were thwarted once again, the enemies sent an open letter stating that Nehemiah was building this wall in an attempt to become king himself. Nehemiah denied the false claims and prayed for renewed strength.
Adding insult to injury, a false prophet from among his own people joined the conflict, by attempting to get Nehemiah to sin against God by hiding in the Temple, where no one but a priest was allowed to go. Nehemiah refused to dishonor the Lord though the attack was now directed at him personally. Even this internal treachery did not stop him.
Nehemiah Succeeds with God’s Help
Despite all manner of resistance, after a mere 52 days, Nehemiah and the remnant of Israel completed the wall of Jerusalem! Now even their enemies admitted that God was indeed on their side. God’s strength was made abundantly clear through the daily surrender of His people.
Nehemiah continued leading with a posture of surrender, for once he called the Israelite families to return to Jerusalem, their first task was to read God’s Word to the whole assembly. The priest, Ezra, read the Book of the Law of Moses aloud. The people listened and responded with heartfelt worship.
Nehemiah 8:6 – 6 And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
Nehemiah, Ezra and the priests who were helping teach the people God’s law, uplifted them with these words:
Nehemiah 8:10b – “And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
What can we learn from Nehemiah’s strength in surrender?
1.Begin in prayer and fasting.
2.Pray a surrendered prayer.
3.Ask for God’s leading, strength and help all along the way.
4.Believe God’s Word and trust His power to accomplish His plans.
5.Seek to employ wisdom, compassion and respect when communicating with those around you, yet remain aware and alert to ungodly opposition.
6.Employ all the weapons of spiritual warfare. (Ephesians 6:10-18)
7.Return to the Word of God again and again.
8.Remember: The joy of the Lord is your strength.
Is God asking you to surrender a part of your life to Him?
Take heart! Surrendering before the Lord is our greatest strength!
Additional Resources:
Order my book on prayer: In Dark of Night When Words Fail, Voice of Jesus Pray for Me
Gentleness – Divinely-Balanced Strength By Melissa McLaughlin
When Everything Falls Apart – 7 Strategies to Get You Through
I pray I will be alert and ready to surrender all to Him. I will admit there are times when I try to fix things on my own. Going to God first always gives me peace.
I join you in this prayer, Melissa. I wholeheartedly agree, going to God first is the best place to begin. When we are weak, then He is strong and we give Him the room to do what only He can.
I love these 8 ways to surrender all to Him before we move forward in a leader role. We must do everything in God’s strength and not in our own. Thanks for these great and practical ideas.
Yvonne, I appreciate how you pointed out the strong connection between Godly leadership and surrender. Nehemiah is so inspiring in that regard. “Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord! There was so much to learn from Nehemiah. I pray I can carry it with me.
Great post! We must continuously surrender ourselves to God at all times. For one thing, when we are ‘still’ and listening, we are likely to hear His voice. We can get very busy at times, and we cease to hear Him pleading with us on our behalf. He, and only He. knows what is best for us. God speaks to us in so many ways, but we must be listening! I think surrender in part is being open to the Holy Spirit as He guides our lives. We are each a work in progress, ever growing nearer to the vision God has planned for us. We must allow that vision to become manifest; we must open our hearts to God’s will and plan for each one of us.
Linda, what a powerful way to express these truths! We are most certainly each a work in progress, so we need daily surrender to the Potter’s hands that we can be formed into the image of Christ and used for HIs purposes. And I agree, it does begin with being still before the Lord, in order to hear the promptings of His Spirit. Prayer, prayer and more prayer!
Prayer is so much more powerful than we realize! This is a beautiful reminder that we must start all things in prayer. I wonder how much more we could do for God if we put this discipline into practice!
Emily, such truth! In the story of Nehemiah, he committed to deep prayer as step one and then continued in various forms of prayer throughout this God-called task. May we surrender in prayer and joy in the Lord’s presence that He has more access to our every thought!
He must increase so I must decrease!
Amen! That says it all! Holy Spirit, take hold of our hearts, minds and wills and soften us to yield to your control, plans and leadership.
What an example he is to all of us! Thank you for sharing his story and giving us personal applications to it!
Thank you, Valerie! His story is absolutely incredible. I truly cannot imagine enduring such hostility and opposition against my every move. But Nehemiah remained true to God’s call upon his life, come what may. Surrender and prayer are powerful weapons!
Yes, they are! Love the post! <3
I’m inspired. Thanks for this message.
The book of Nehemiah is also one of my favorite. Nehemiah is a hero of the faith who demonstrated proper application of faith in the work place, under hostile challenge by enemies, and with those in authority. About twenty years ago, my husband wrote his Master’s Thesis in Organization Management on this book. It was a delight to edit for him. There’s so much good here! But today what jumped out at me was The Scripture Review.
We’ve seen this before in the Bible at this point in Biblical history. When Israel left Egypt, Leviticus was written by Moses – a book reviewing what exactly was a sin and what wasn’t. They had been in Egypt four hundred years. They no longer knew! From both of these reviews, we learn an important fact. The Word of God is essential to keep us on track when recovering from time in the world, especially if that time has been challenging or destructive. The Word keeps us centered and shows us what is right. We need to be immersed in the Word daily. Nehemiah clearly had memorized much Scripture and applied it by faith in a pagan culture!
What an appropriate book to use for a thesis in Organization Management! God bless you and your husband! Other than Christ, I can’t imagine a better leader or manager than Nehemiah. Truly, there is so much to uncover and meditate upon in this book of the Bible. I think one of the joys of heaven will be having a full understanding of the beauty of God’s Word in all its layers of truth and goodness. This will book will be one of them for sure. But as you say, God’s plan, message and character were lived out not just in theory, but by an actual person under increasingly harsh trials. His faith under pressure is something to be remembered and it was absolutely grounded in the power of God’s Word. Without knowing and loving God’s Word, he could never have operated as he did. I was trying to not run away with this post (I guess you can tell!) but you are right, when the people heard the Word of God read to them again, they wept, for they didn’t realize how far they had strayed. May we cling to God’s truth as desperately as Nehemiah.
Nehemiah is a favorite of mine too. I was just reading Nehemiah yesterday. So cool. I go back to his prayer throughout the year and need to reference it more. When I read about him it makes me think I can’t even come close to his faith and reverence of God. But, he was just a regular person like me who happened to be surrendered to God. I hope to be more surrendered to God like Nehemiah.
I agree, Meghan! Even before I really dug deep into the details of Nehemiah and how he lived out his faith, I just loved that prayer. I have a copy of it taped on a closet door, so I can read it at a glance as I am passing by. Thank you for sharing with me in the joy of this book of the Bible. May the Lord help us grow in faith and surrender, dear sister!
Melissa, this is breathtaking. It’s been a while since I read and studied Nehemiah’s story. I love his example of surrender and how he responded to opposition. It’s a lesson for us all. The best reaction isn’t a knee-jerk response, but a response on our knees. Nehemiah prayed before he acted. This stood out to me. And his humble surrender over sin and who God is and what God is capable of doing sets the bar where it should be. Love this article and your 8 points! Love! Love! Love!
Thank you for reading and letting this amazing story of Nehemiah’s surrendered faith soak in deep. It is truly an incredible inspiration to read of all that he accomplished through his total dependence on the Lord. Yes, yes, his humble surrender over our sin before a holy God, then leaning totally on that great God to accomplish what only He can – a perfect illustration of strength in weakness. Bless you!
Dear Melissa,
I am always amazed at how the Lord uses your words to confirm what He has been working in my heart. Even this week, as I was unable to come read your post for several days, He led me here tonight, after I had just finished working on another piece the Lord laid on my heart. He knows so well how to keep us surrendered to HIM, and to look to Him for His strength and His joy. Thank you for listening to the Lord’s prompting my dear friend. Blessings to you
Bettie, I can’t wait to read your post to see how the Holy Spirit wove the strands of His message into your heart, faith and writing. I love it when he intertwines His message in our lives! I’m keeping you in prayer, dear sister, as I know the journey is long and the road is rocky. May His strength sustain you minute by minute. Blessings, love and hugs to you.
What a great example for us individually and corporately. The heart of Nehemiah can change our homes, neighborhoods, communities, nations–the world!
You are spot on, Nancy! We have so much to learn from Nehemiah’s heart posture before the Lord and then how that radiated out through his life and his leadership. Oh God, give us humble hearts before you!
Powerful post about prayer, dear Melissa. Amen to your words: “A surrendered prayer is a powerful prayer.”
Blessings ~ Wendy Mac
Wendy, thank you for joining me here to think deeply about the power of prayer as demonstrated by Nehemiah. His surrendered prayer illustrates a heart posture before the Lord Jesus that I aspire to daily in my own prayer time. Blessings to you!