The Challenge of Trusting God but Taking Action

Scripture — Nehemiah 4:7-9 (NRSV)

But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and the gaps were beginning to be closed, they were very angry, and all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. So we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.

Devotion

Many years ago, I had a friend who was dealing with a tough personal issue. She was diligent in prayer about what she was confronting. But it seemed to me she was otherwise too passive. Yes, she was praying hard. Yet she wasn’t doing things to improve her situation. She believed that praying about her situation was enough. While in a bookstore, I saw a plaque that read, “Pray toward heaven but row toward shore.” I bought the plaque and gave it to my friend. She, as it turned out, was not very happy with me. She believed that fervent prayer would be adequate to solve her problem.

I admired her faith but didn’t agree with her understanding of how people of faith can combine prayer with pragmatic action. I wish I had thought to bring up the example of Nehemiah in chapter 4. He and his fellow Jews faced a daunting challenge. Because of their progress in rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem, many of the neighboring leaders and people became “very angry” (4:7). So they plotted to attack Jerusalem to stop the wall-building effort.

I imagine this must have been quite upsetting to Nehemiah and his colleagues. After all, they did not have a wall behind which to defend themselves or an army with which to defeat their foes. They were utterly vulnerable.

So what did Nehemiah lead his people to do? First, he led them in prayer. Nehemiah says simply “So we prayed to God.” But it is most likely that Nehemiah led them in prayer or chose someone to do it. He knew how much what they had taken on in building the wall depended on God’s grace and help. And, from experience, Nehemiah knew that prayer was essential in such a situation.

But Nehemiah and his colleagues did more than pray. Verse 9 reads, “So we prayed to our God, and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.” They prayed and they acted. Or, to quote that plaque from years ago, “They prayed toward heaven and rowed toward shore.”

Now, I know some Christians believe that if you really have faith when you pray there isn’t a need for the “row toward shore” action. There are certainly times when God acts in such a way that our contribution is unnecessary. But so many stories in the Bible, including the one in Nehemiah 4, show how God’s supernatural action and tangible human actions work together to accomplish God’s purposes. To cite one obvious example, when the Israelites were standing on the bank of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army approaching, God miraculously created a path through the sea. Amazing! But God did not magically transport the people from one side to the other. God could have done that, of course. But, instead, God did God’s part, opening up a path through the sea, and the Israelites did their part, walking across the miraculously dry floor of the Red Sea.

I was raised in a culture that tended to separate faith from work. Faith was all about church and Sundays and one’s personal life. Work was all about the office and weekdays and one’s professional life. Thus, it was natural for me to think that prayer was appropriate for the “spiritual stuff.” Pragmatic action belonged in the “work stuff.”

Over the years, however, I’ve come to see that God doesn’t divide things up in the way I once did. God cares every bit as much about our work as God cares about our participation at church. Thus, like Nehemiah, we ought to pray about our work while at the same time actively engaging in it. If you’re a leader in some context, the example of Nehemiah encourages you to pray about all that God has entrusted to your leadership even as you actively do that which your leadership requires. Trusting God as we pray in no way suggests that we remain passive, waiting for some sort of miracle. Rather, as we pray, we also act in ways consistent with our prayers.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Israel at the Red Sea and on the Way to Sinai (Exodus 13:17-18:27).