Where Are The Leaders?

My father was a driven man. He had built himself a successful homebuilding business by starting out building houses at night and on weekends while he worked as a carpenter at Fort Gordon during the day. I had the opportunity(forced I might add) to drive nails on his framing crew during the summers of my high school and college days. I must admit by the age of 16, riding that flat bed truck to and from work was fun. I can still hear those words when the hammers were not ringing as he thought they should - "drive those nails!" My Dad was a good example of a common man who had great leadership skills in relating to all those who worked with him. He got the houses built.

There is a screaming need for good leadership in our culture today, especially good Godly leadership. All we have to do is look around us and we can easily find situations of leadership breakdown. We find it in homes, businesses, government, and even churches. In many cases, things may appear fine on the outside, but if we were to take a deep look on the inside, we would find a different picture. It would be a picture of internal strife and confusion.

We may ask, what does a real leader look like? Well, there is one who I believe is a perfect example of a great leader and a true Godly leader. It is Nehemiah, and we can find his story in a book in the Old Testament written by Nehemiah himself. As we study his life, we will see that not only did he posses exceptional leadership principles, but he lived those principles out in his everyday life. 

Nehemiah was a cupbearer for the King of Persia. In years past, all of Judea had been captured and enslaved by Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. But now, Persia had defeated the Babylonians and all the Jews were set free to return to their homeland of Judea. During the Jewish captivity, all of Jerusalem had been destroyed including the temple and the walls that surrounded the city. It is during this time of the Jews having returned that the city and the Temple are rebuilt. There is only one problem - there is no protective wall around the city. 

While Nehemiah is serving in his position to the King of Persia, some fellow countrymen from Judea pass by. Nehemiah quickly goes to them to inquire about the conditions of his homeland that he loves. In chapter 1 verse 3, we see the report that was given to Nehemiah; " The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and it's gates are burned with fire." This was devastating for Nehemiah to hear, for you see, God had placed in Nehemiah a great concern and passion for his country. Now, God was planting in the heart of Nehemiah a need to go and build the walls back.

You may be one of those people where God has placed a passion in your heart for something very dear to you. If you are, how are you going to respond? When we see a problem or have this God given passion about something, we have several responses we can take. First, we can ignore it. We tell ourselves that it is not our problem, we don't want to get involved. We may even explore it for awhile, but resistance and criticism from those we have confided in destroys our heart and so we ignore it. Second, we may just tolerate it, after all, it's not that bad of a situation. Complacency sets in and we cannot justify taking the effort to get involved. It will cost us to much. The final response, and the one most appropriate, is to recognize that God may want us to be the one to get the job done.

The world is looking for someone to step forward and lead in so many areas of our life. Homes today are breaking up for lack of good men to step forward and lead their families in Godly ways as a husband and father. The marketplace, while being consumed with worldly ethics and integrity, is screaming out for someone to come and lead us back to the principles of God in business. There has never been more evidence in our country than it is today for Godly people to step up and take our country back to the Christian principles upon which it was founded. Many of our friends and neighbors are waiting for you and me to share with them the difference Jesus has made in our life.

Are we concerned? Has some of these concerns become a passion in our life. God may be calling each one of us to go and build the wall.