Leadership Principles From Nehemiah – 5

Leaders Adapt to Adversity (Nehemiah 4:8-9).

MANY people run from adversity; wise leaders expect it to happen occasionally. Wherever change and progress are underway, competing interests inevitably rise to challenge them. At that point, leaders must decide whether they will accept the challenge and meet it, or turn tail and let their opponents set the agenda.

Nehemiah’s adversaries were a group of Jews from racially mixed backgrounds and Gentiles who had a vested interest in seeing that Jerusalem remained unprotected (Nehemiah 4:7). During the seventy years of Judah’s exile, they had established dominance over those left behind. Therefore, Nehemiah’s plan to rebuild the walls and revitalize the city threatened to end their monopoly on control.

Nehemiah responded to their opposition with resolute faith and prayer and measured resistance. Rather than escalate a touchy situation, he defended against attack and kept on working. Thus he adapted to adversity rather than run from it or overreact to it. God eventually rewarded Nehemiah’s perseverance with the completion of the wall (Nehemiah 6:15).

Courtesy of Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
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