The Gracious Hand

A city in ruins. A man far away who could not stop thinking about it. Nehemiah was a royal official in Persia when he heard that the walls of Jerusalem were still broken down. He wept, prayed for months, risked his position with one honest answer to the king, and went home to lead the rebuilding. The wall was finished in fifty-two days, through mockery, threats, exhausted volunteers, injustice among his own people, and rumors about himself. Then the harder work began.

The Gracious Hand is a 30-day devotional through the whole book of Nehemiah for anyone who has been asked to lead the rebuilding of something broken: a church, a ministry, a business, a team, a family, or a town. Along the way you'll follow Clem, a retired contractor and former mayor who led his river town's rebuilding after a flood decades ago, and Leah, a middle school assistant principal who has just agreed to chair the volunteer recovery effort after the river came up again. Their conversations happen in Clem's woodshop, at the café, on Main Street at night, and on the phone, and they lead into each day's teaching and practice.