All Kingdom projects will attract opposition. Here, the project is nearing completion and there are two new challenges made specifically to Nehemiah. Note that the enemy attacks leaders. Let’s not fall into the trap of reducing the idea of ‘leaders’ to position or title. If you’re following Jesus, you are a leader called to shift the culture around you by seeing the Kingdom of God come. Opposition will come your way. It is worth knowing what it looks like. In this chapter, the first one is that of distraction (v.1-4).
The clue of the required response is in the name of the plain (v.2). The same opposition comes his way multiple times. For us it might be the distraction of time-wasting; of unnecessary meetings; of prevarication. The tyranny of the urgent consuming energy away from us addressing the priorities. The antidote is obedience to that which God has called you to. In a similar way Jesus was invited to go somewhere else because Herod wanted to kill him. Jesus’ response was: ‘Go tell that fox…. that I must keep going’. (Full story in Luke 13:31-33). We may not use the same language to those who would distract us (!) but we do need to give the same message: we will not be distracted from the priorities God has given us.
The second way of opposition takes the form of an open letter (v.5-7). It would have been easy for Nehemiah to respond out of fear or take its contents (or himself) too seriously. His response is short and shrift: ‘Nothing like what you are saying is happening: you are just making it up out of your head.’ Jill Duff in her book ‘Lighting the Beacons’1 suggest that our best response to opposition like this is simply to laugh at it (echoes of Psalm 2). The invitation to fear is followed up by the invitation to hide in the temple. But Nehemiah knows better than this. How? Because he knows the Scriptures – he is not a priest and has no right of access to the temple (v.11). And, because he is a man of prayer (v.9) and discerns well (v.12).
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Question:
Are you distracted from the purposes of God in your life by all the things that need to be done? If so, list what you think the distractions are one by one. Ask the Father to show you which ones (if any) are actually part of His plan for you right now; and to give you a strategy for dealing with the ones that are not.
Prayer: ‘My Father, may your will be done.’ (Matthew 26:42)
1 Jill Duff, Lighting the Beacons, (London: SPCK, 2023) p173