Nehemiah’s Leadership Playbook: Dealing with Adversaries (2)

Dealing with Adversaries

Now it happened, when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were being restored and the gaps were beginning to be closed, that they became very angry, and all of them conspired together to come and attack Jerusalem and create confusion. Nevertheless we made our prayer to our God, and because of them we set a watch against them day and night. – Nehemiah 4:7-9

In continuation of our meditation on the strategy Nehemiah used in handling adversaries, another lesson we can learn from him is watchfulness. Yesterday, we saw that the first step he took upon being informed about the antics of the enemies was to pray to God. He did not stop there, however. From the passage above, we can see that the next step he took was to mobilize his men to stand watch and look out for external aggression.

The Bible exhorts us to “watch and pray”, and we practically see this playing out in the activities of Nehemiah. After he received intelligence about the schemes of the adversaries, he prayed and stood watch.

It is important to know that Nehemiah did not adopt the contemporary wisdom of attack being the best form of defense by setting out to take on the forces of Sanballat and Tobiah. Doing that would have resulted in many undesirable consequences including slowing down the work, losing some of his workforce to death and injuries, as well as legitimizing a formidable opposition in Sanballat and Tobiah who would then have good reasons to attack him, the people of Judah, and the work they were doing even without provocation.

Nehemiah was smart enough to maintain his peace and focus on the project at hand, whilst he kept on praying to God and having an active watch in place to prevent a surprise attack. In doing this, he exemplified an important lesson in adversary management for all leaders and would-be authorities to learn from. This helped him and his people to progress with the work without stopping as the workers were assured of their safety with those on guard watching out to alert them in case there was any danger.

Watchfulness is a desirable attribute in a leader as she must always be a thought ahead, a plan ahead, a move ahead and a step ahead of the people to lead them effectively. If you must lead with any measure of success, you need to borrow a leaf from Nehemiah in this regard.

You Will Succeed in Jesus Name!

Also read:

• Nehemiah’s Leadership Playbook: Dealing with Adversaries
• The Stones of Life
• I Dropped Dead