Road Trippin With Rachael

Have you ever met someone who you knew was doing the job that they were called to do? They are enthusiastic, they love what they do, and you can’t help but be excited because they are so vivacious about what they do. It’s infectious!

I love working on my YouTube channel, Road Trippin With Rachael, and working on the blog. Education and Bible study are both things that I’m passionate about, and when I get to work my way through a passage of scripture, and then put in into a form that is cohesive and understandable, I feel like I am right where I supposed to be. I know that I am in God’s will. On top of that, I’m a born administrator – yes, you could say that I’m naturally bossy, but you could also say that I’m a planner and organizer who sees how everything can work together and see the multiple moving pieces. I’ve been in different leadership positions since I graduated from high school, and it began more obvious what my giftings include.

That being said, as I have developed my style of leadership, I’ve also learned some truths about being a leader. Having good communication skills is a must – but that doesn’t mean that everyone needs to know everything immediately. Sometimes you have to get details figured out before information is communicated. The way that something is communicated matters. Presentation determines perception. Finally, not everyone is going to agree with what you decide, or how you decide to address something. Today, we are going to be taking a look at Nehemiah 2:11-20, and we are going to see how all these things were addressed.

Everyone Should Know Everything, But Not Immediately

I got up at night and took a few men with me. I didn’t tell anyone what my God had laid on my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal I took was the one I was riding. I went out at night through the Valley Gate toward the Serpent’s Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but farther down it became too narrow for my animal to go through. So I went up at night by way of the valley and inspected the wall. Then heading back, I entered through the Valley Gate and returned. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, for I had not yet told the Jews, priest, nobles, officials, or the rest of the those who would be doing the work. – Nehemiah 2:12-16 (CSB)

Nehemiah had a plan. God had been preparing him, and as we have seen previously in Scripture, specific steps have already been taken to make sure that Nehemiah had access to the resources that he would need to accomplish his task: the rebuilding of the walls surrounding Jerusalem. All of his homework had been done so to speak. He knew what was feasible. He knew what was going to need to be done. He had a head count on the number of people he was going to need to work, and he had an accurate cost projection. 

The only thing he had not done yet was tell anyone who was actually going to be working with him.

Now, if we were working with Nehemiah, we would probably be thinking something like: “I don’t understand why he didn’t share this with me.” “We pay our taxes, and we deserve to know what that money is going towards” (a little bit of American in there for you). “How can he keep such a big project to himself?” Listen, I get it. I like knowing what is going on, and why we are choosing to do something a certain way. However, I also recognize that there are times when I don’t need to know.

Let me give an example from my time as an admissions counselor. Bi-weekly, during the first semester, I sent out an email to all my prospective students for the next academic year. These emails cover a variety of topics, including: thinking about college, what my college’s mission was, how to pay for college, what the admissions process is, and how to schedule a campus visit. If you were to look at my work calendar, you would have found that I had it marked when specific emails were to go out – weeks in advance. When I planned out the bi-weekly emails, I actually wrote and typed all of them up in June. I spent weeks working on those emails, and figuring out what they needed to know in bite size pieces, and in what order they needed to be sent out so that they would make sense. My students had no idea the amount of time and effort it took to prepare those emails, not only to write them, but plan when they would receive them. 

Frankly, they didn’t need to know. They were to receive the product of my labor, without knowing the effort that went into them. Likewise, Nehemiah has taken on the project of assessing the what exists of the wall, and being sure that he has an accurate idea of the scope of work that is going to be done. He kept the project to himself. No one else at that this point needed to know. Honestly, the surrounding peoples who were not Jewish would want to put a stop to the project if they knew what was coming. As with any confidential project, once one person knows it becomes common knowledge. Keeping this on the downlow was a massive undertaking. 

Before you begin to say that that this could be kept a secret because there were no news crews, social media, and technology was behind – let me remind you that in the 1940’s, a time that was far more advanced than the time of the Babylonian Captivity, that Franklin Delano Roosevelt kept the atomic bomb a secret from his Vice President, Harry S. Truman. Truman only learned about the bomb when he became President after FDR’s death. There are parts of ministries and projects that the general populace doesn’t need to know about. It is not because ministry leaders which to keep things from their congregations, but that they do not want a ton of cooks in the kitchen.

Taking a closer look at ministry, this principle applies to a great deal of the details that go into missions projects, small group planning, Sunday school, and missions trips. Most of details are handled without anyone know exactly how much work goes into it, and they are presented with the fruits of someone else’s labor. An example could be planning a missions trip; details like a supporting church, food budget, travel, lodging, rest stops, and other activities are all planned before the church is told what the plan is. If there is a need of discussion, it happens then and (most of the time) alternatives have already been researched, and a good missions pastor/church administrator will have Plan B and Plan C outlined as insurance if something happens with Plan A.

Presentation is Key

So I said to them, “you see the trouble we are in. Jerusalem lies in ruins and its gates have been burned. Come, let’s rebuild Jerusalem’s wall, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.” I told them how the gracious hand of my God had been on me, and what the king had said to me. They said, “Let’s start rebuilding,” and their hands were strengthened to do this good work. – Nehemiah 2:17-18 (CSB)

One of the things that I learned during my time in the workforce has been that the way something is presented is going to determine how well it is going to be received. How does Nehemiah do this?

First, Nehemiah tells them that there is a problem. For the Nehemiah, it is this, “Jerusalem lies in ruins and the gates have been burned.” (17a) The people are being forced to face the obvious problem: they have no way to defend themselves. The city itself is in ruin, and the surrounding wall that is meant to be their main line of defense is open for anyone and anything to come in and wreck any work that could be done to improve the city. 

Second, Nehemiah gives them a solution. “Let’s rebuild Jerusalem’s walls.” (17b) Rebuilding the walls would be a massive undertaking. To understand how large of an untaking, we have to back up a bit in history, and review what had happened in teh history of Isreal to get to this point.

After the death of Solomon, the nation of Israel split into two different kingdoms: Israel was in the north, and was made up of 10 tribes, Judea was in the south and was made of the tribe of Benjamin and Judah. David’s descendents continued to rule over Judea, but Israel had various rulers from various families. Both kingdoms had kings that progressively were poorer and poorer rulers, until eventually the Assyrians overtook Israel, scattering the 10 tribes. There are various theories about what happened to them, from them being intermarried to the surrounding nations, killed off, or sold off. Judea maintained independence until Babylon came in and defeated them, taking them in three different waves to Babylon. During this time mass numbers of members of both Benjamin and Judah were taken out of the country based on their social class. Through the upheve of Babylon, which eventually was defeated and taken over by Persia, the kings saw the benefit of returning their captives to their homeland. As a result, there was a group of Jews who were released after 80 years to return to Judea, and resettle the land. Only one group managed to leave due to the political uphevel in the Persian Empire. These people would build up their houses and begin to acquire wealth for themselves. They were also focused on rebuilding the temple. Zechariah, Haggai, Nehemiah, and Ezra all recount various stages of rebuilding Israel, Jerusalem, and the temple. I highly recommend reading all four books and getting a complete picture of what Nehemiah was up to.

To put it simply, Nehemiah calls the people out for their failure to take care of some of the basic necessities – protection for the people. The reconstruction of the temple had already been addressed by Zechariah in previous years. It seems so obvious! The descendents of the people who have always had an axe to grind against the people of God have been successful because there weren’t any ways to keep them out. They have been free to attach, destroy, and abuse the people because they could simply walk in. One may not simply walk into Mordor, but you could simply walk into Jerusalem! 

Finally, Nehemiah presents them with not only a solution, but a way to accomplish and get to the solution. He shared what God had done for him to be there, how the king had agreed to fund the enterprise, and how there was a plan to rebuild. As a result, the people were encouraged, and got behind the project of rebuilding the wall. 

There Will Always Be Someone Who Doesn’t Like What You Are Doing

When Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about this, they mocked and despised us, and said, What is this you’re doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” I gave them this reply, ‘The God of the heavens is the one who will grant us success. We, his servant, will start building, but you have no share, right, or historic claim in Jerusalem.’ – Nehemiah 2:19-20 (CSB)

It seems like it should be common sense. It shouldn’t be a  surprise to anyone, but here’s the tea: no matter what you do, or how you do it, you are never going to please everyone. There is always going to be someone who is going to be displeased with what you do.

Let’s just talk about an example: modesty. Modesty amongst female groups is becoming a hot topic at the moment. Why? Modesty is going to mean different things to different people. For some that means that you need to be covered from neck to ankle, and for others it means that you need to have the important bits covered. We won’t dive into my thoughts on modesty, but it’s a good example of there being disagreement amongst people, and no matter the decision a woman or man makes about modesty, there are going to be people who say that they are either not embracing their body or they are doing to say that they are not modest enough.

But let’s consider some examples from Scripture. If we take an example from the Old Testament, there is Aaron and the Golden Calf. While Moses was on Mt. Sinia, the people demanded that Aaron construct for them a god that they would be able to worship. Now the people had seen the mighty works of God in the plagues that He sent to Egypt, in the crossing of the Red Sea, and yet they were not satisfied with that – they wanted more. They couldn’t be pleased. Jesus gave Caesar what is Caesar’s, and instead of pleasing anyone, He made perfect sense, and the audience with him was still unhappy! (). Basically, you will never be able to please everyone.

Nehemiah, to be fair, was not interested in pleasing the Ammonites – a group of people that had taken over the land after the Hebrew people were relocated to Babylon. In fact, Nehemiah’s goal at this point was to have the Hebrew people reclaim their dignity, their national pride, that they were God’s people and they were going to rebuild and protect their capital city. Without going into an in depth discussion of Nehemiah being obedient to some of the laws of Torah given to the people through Moses, surfice to say that the chosen people of God were not to inappropriately mix with the surrounding peoples.

Moving back up to the verses at hand – “What are you doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” (2:19). Sanballot, Tobia, and Geshem couldn’t be satisfied with the answer that they received from Nehemiah. In a nutshell, they would never be satisfied with any answer they would have been given.

Final Thoughts

The blog was written more towards potential ministry leaders, than it really is for a small group to use. However, it also gives some insight into what is is behind the curtain when it comes to planning and preparing. There is a lot that goes into preparing lessons and ministry opportunities for others, that people do not ever really know about. Even when they do learn details, often most of the details have already been decided before they are ever told. When information is shared, the way that it is shared matters how it will be perceived and received. And to wrap it up, not everyone is going to like what you decide to do or agree with what you choose to do. That is really all there is to it. Not everyone is going to agree. I don’t always agree with decisions that are made by my bosses, and they don’t always agree with what I choose to do. In the end, think about how things are received, but also know that “this” has to be done and you’ve done what you can to be faithful to God.