Codes for Christian Living
Take Personal Responsibility
And I said: “I pray, Lord God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both my father’s house and I have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses. Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations; but if you return to Me, and keep My commandments and do them, though some of you were cast out to the farthest part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and bring them to the place which I have chosen as a dwelling for My name.’ Now these are Your servants and Your people, whom You have redeemed by Your great power, and by Your strong hand. O Lord, I pray, please let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name; and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” For I was the king’s cupbearer.
—NEHEMIAH 1:5–11
Nehemiah could have approached the process of rebuilding Jerusalem by pointing the finger of accusation at those who bore responsibility for the current dilemma. If Nebuchadnezzar had not besieged Jerusalem, burned it, and taken the captives into Babylon, the Jews would not have had this huge task of rebuilding before them. Perhaps if Zerubbabel had been a bit more zealous about the task of rebuilding years earlier, when the remnant began to return from exile, things would have been different. Nehemiah had a lot of people—with their past mistakes and difficulties—he could have blamed for all the current problems. He could have rightly placed blame on Jehoiachin, Zedekiah, and the other kings of Judah. They had betrayed their people and their heritage by turning away from their God, resulting in the devastation of their people, their temple, and their city. But Nehemiah was wise enough to know that those who play the blame game never get the task of rebuilding completed. He refused to direct the blame to others and, instead, stepped up to take personal responsibility himself.
Too many people fall into the trap of blaming their present problems on the wrong decisions made by other people in the past. But falling into this trap never leads to moving forward with actually accomplishing our own tasks. Nehemiah ultimately had one goal: getting the wall rebuilt. And he was laser-focused on getting this task started right.
Content drawn from The Nehemiah Code: It's Never Too Late for a New Beginning.