16

Our son, a spade, and a sword

Sixteen is especially sweet for our son, our family this year.

Because much of the past twelve months has been harrowing for him, us.

The past twelve months, the “unknown” has often been all we’ve known. We have developed a greater tolerance for ambiguity. At the same time, we have learned daily and learned much.

Perhaps most importantly, we have learned to celebrate “everyday” life every day. And this particular day, May 8, our family celebrates life with heightened exuberance, with deeper humility, with keener gratitude …as we celebrate our son’s s sixteenth birthday.

Our son has been inspirational in his fortitude. He has been incredible in his forward-looking orientation. I’ve learned so much about leadership from him and his journey. I’ve learned the necessity of rally/cry. I’ve learned the potency of suffering with. I’ve learned that effective leaders don’t run from problems, but they do run to others.

And what I still have left to learn about leadership — about life — is…a lot.

Of late, a good place for me to learn has been the book of Nehemiah, which is the sixteenth book of the Old Testament, incidentally — or not. Scholars of various stripes, both secular and spiritual, consider Nehemiah a text that contains many fine leadership principles.

The basic premise of Nehemiah is that the title character is tasked with rebuilding the wall around the city of Jerusalem, circa 445 BC. Throughout this process, Nehemiah faces numerous external threats. He also encounters many internal obstacles, not the least of these is his own fearfulness (I can relate!).

Perhaps the biggest leadership challenge for Nehemiah, though, is building the wall to keep out enemy armies while these enemy armies are pressing in.

Nehemiah’s solution to this problem? A spade-and-sword strategy, as described in chapter four, beginning (of course) with verse sixteen:

So it was, from that time on, that half of my servants worked at construction, while the other half held the spears, the shields, the bows, and wore armor; and the leaders were behind all the house of Judah. Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon. Every one of the builders had his sword girded at his side as he built.

Nehemiah’s team did not pause its work when they came under attack. Nor did it ignore the attack for the sake of the work. Instead, Nehemiah equipped — and expected — his men to build and defend simultaneously.

Admittedly, that’s a high expectation. As a leader, many times I struggle to build. And many times, I struggle to defend. In fact, many times I don’t even know what building or defending looks like. Hence, to be effective at both in the same moment seems…beyond my ability.

Indeed, that is correct: My personal capacity is insufficient. I’m not Nehemiah.

But then, I don’t have to be. (And neither do you.)

For Nehemiah wasn’t “Nehemiah” without an amazing team.

And I have that. We have that. Our family has had a powerful group of people of all ages and locations come around us to help defend against attacks of all kinds while simultaneously helping us rebuild our personal lives.

Without this team…well, I don’t know where we’d be. A majority of the time, I feel that others are leading me much more than I’m leading them. And amen to that.

Sometimes a leader must simply trust and follow. I’m learning how to do that, too.

Still, I don’t know what tomorrow holds (and no one does, truthfully). Yes, the pressure of attack remains constant. Yet, so too has the progress of building…even if only incremental at times.

But what I do know is that in and for my family, I’m called to hold a spade in one hand and a sword in the other. I’m called to have a building and defending mindset — concurrently.

Maintaining this mindset, team Nehemiah was able to rebuild the city wall with remarkable efficiency — with so much speed, actually, that Israel’s enemies “perceived that this work was done by our God.”

We have an identical perception of the work in our son’s life: done by our God. Precisely as stated in Nehemiah chapter five.

Verse sixteen.

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16 was originally published in Horizon Performance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.