In his book entitled Spiritual Leadership, Oswald Sanders wrote, "The man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. The true leader will have no desire to lord it over God's heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing and altogether as ready to follow as to lead".... "A good example of this kind of "true leader" was William E. Sangster, a leader in the Methodist denomination in Great Britain. After Dr. Sangster's death his son found a private manuscript where he had written of his growing conviction that he should accept a greater role of leadership. He wrote, "This is the will of God for me. I did not choose it. I sought to escape it. But it has come. Something else has come too. A sense of certainty that God...wants me also for a leader.... I feel a commissioning to work under God for the revival of this branch of His Church -- careless of my own reputation; indifferent to the comments of older and jealous men. I am thirty-six, If I am to serve God in this way, I must no longer shrink from the task -- but do it"

Another good example of a true spiritual leader is Nehemiah. He arose to leadership not because of ambition but because of conviction. He was broken-hearted over the fact that the walls of Jerusalem were down. He believed that something must be done about it, and he believed that God was calling him to do it He already had an enviable position as cup-bearer to the king of the Medo-Persian empire. Traveling to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls would only mean hardship, frustration and opposition. Yet after months of prayer in solitude Nehemiah was convinced that God was calling him to do this work in Jerusalem. There came a point when he decided, as William Sangster, "I must no longer shrink from the task -- but do it."

Nehemiah is not known as a great leader because of the size of the project he led to completion. Even by ancient standards this building project was not that big. Certainly much more impressive structures were built. Nehemiah distinguished himself as a spiritual leader because of the way he conducted himself before God and men. Because of that, Nehemiah is a model for us. Using the passage we have read I would like to isolate four traits of outstanding spiritual leaders, each of which are illustrated in the life of Nehemiah.

First of all, great spiritual leaders spend time alone with God. Notice that when Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem he did not go right to work. He was there for three days before he even made a careful investigation of the situation. Let's not overlook the fact that Nehemiah could have done things much differently. He already knew that the walls were down, and he was the leader of a delegation sent by King Artaxerxes to rebuild them. Furthermore, he was called by God to do so. As soon as he blew into town he could have announced what he was there to do and tried to snap the people into line. "Never fear, Nehemiah is here. Just follow me and I'll correct all the problems that you have been unable to solve."