Issue 449
Here are a couple of great questions for you. What is the greatest test you’ve ever faced in your life so far? Second, what is the greatest quality you look for in a leader?
We are exploring the mind of a man who is recounting for you what appears to be his greatest test. His name is Nehemiah which is a combination of the words for comfort and God. We know he is a man of prayer who receives comfort from God. We have spent many months discovering his strengths and skills. Now you will see him face his test, show his strength (forte) and display his qualities. We will see whether he can bring comfort from God to other people.
Nehemiah is facing a financial scandal described in the previous edition (448). Essentially there is an internal problem among his own people. Everything you read about this problem will be a drama played out inside Nehemiah’s mind as well as on the pages of his journal. How is he going to handle it? Here we go.
He tells us that he heard an outcry and this came with charges attached. In that small phrase he accidentally shows the quality of his leadership. He heard.
Now ask yourself, what is it like to be heard? Conversely what is it like not to be heard? When the cry of the slaves in Egypt resolved into pain, God heard. Look through the pages of your bible and you will find the God who listens. Look into your own mind and you will want to be heard.
It’s the spirit of the dying thief saying “remember me”, it’s the widow saying “heal my son” it’s the shout of the blind man, the woman at the well and the chorus of history all asking to be heard. Nehemiah is displaying a mind after that of his God, just by hearing.
So you might like to ask if you have heard – really heard, what people say. Solomon prayed for a heart with the skill to listen.
I could write a book on listening but it’s already been written. I am advocating that the principles be written into your mind. I’ll mention just one in passing. It’s easy to hear what you want to hear and what you want to be true, it’s listening to hear what you don’t want to hear and don’t want to be true.
Nehemiah goes on to tell you “he was very angry”. What he heard infuriated him. We’ve seen his anger before, expressed in a prayer about his enemies. This anger is much more explicit and intense, perhaps because it is about an internal issue.
Watch carefully, however, what he does with his anger. No prayer is recorded in his journal. He does two things with it. First, he ponders the issue in his mind. He does not tell us what he pondered; he does not need to because what he did next tells you exactly what he had pondered. Secondly he turns his anger into an accusation.
Please listen and become wise. Nehemiah directed his anger at the right people. Aristotle, who lived just a few decades after Nehemiah and who taught Alexander the Great, said “Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy” (II.1109a27). Nehemiah would have agreed.
Nehemiah was absolutely clear that his anger should be directed at the nobles and officials. In Nehemiah’s mind he had identified the source of the injustice. It was not the borrowers but the lenders, it was not the debtors but the creditors, it was not the powerless but the powerful, it was not the poor it was the rich. Here was the centre of this financial injustice and Nehemiah knew it.
Once he had done this piece of thinking and settled it in his own mind, the solutions would follow. Without this thinking the mess would never go away.
Have we stumbled on a model here? Yes we have. There are seven steps from beginning to end of this disgraceful situation. Hearing, anger, pondering, accusing, solving, sealing and joy. Check out Nehemiah’s mind for yourself then ask yourself, do I hear? Then, having heard, are you rightly angry? Having got angry, can you then ponder what has really happened? Having pondered, can you accuse the right people?
Here is something to make sure you see. If you don’t hear, your anger will arrive, but be misinformed. If your anger is misinformed, your pondering will be in error. If your pondering is in error, you will accuse the wrong people. If you accuse the wrong people, you will not take the right actions to solve the problem. If you don’t take the right actions, your problem will remain. If your problem remains no agreement will seal the solution and the result will be misery.
We will visit this again to deepen our understanding but here is an amazing twist in the story.
Nehemiah’s pondering leads him to a shadow in his own soul. He discovered, deep in himself, he was also part of the problem. Check out for yourself. It’s in the tenth verse of his fifth chapter. He and his brothers were also lenders! Spin it however you like, but he and his brothers were part of the problem. Before you get angry and accuse me in your attempt to defend Nehemiah, remember this. Even if he was not lending unjustly this whole stinking system had survived under his watch.
No wonder he was angry, he was angry at himself for missing this. If you are a leader in any team, whether it is trade, profession, business, church or charity and a stink arises on your watch you are, by definition, part of the problem. How you deal with it will determine if you are part of the solution, and that will depend on whether you hear the outcry. How will you know if you really heard correctly? I’ll explain that next week if you will listen.
Nehemiah 5:6-7a
6 When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry. 7 I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials.
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Geoff Shattock
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