Welcome to a brand new type of episode that I'm going to be doing called Business Bible Study, where I'm going to be unpacking actual passages of scripture from the Word of God, from the Holy Bible, and applying them directly to our business life.

Because I think there is so much wisdom that is baked into the Bible.

And today we're going to be unpacking the story of Nehemiah, who's kind of like this B-list

character in the Bible in the sense that he's not very well known by a lot of people.

But what I want to talk about is the fact that there are many business owners out there, myself included, maybe yourself

included, who are fulfilling their God-given callings. And in that place, you are no stranger

to fiery darts, as the Bible calls them, of fear.

And Nehemiah is the perfect place to consult in the Bible on what to do when those fiery darts

try to come and attack us.

So the book of Nehemiah begins with this guy named Nehemiah who is a Jewish leader who's in exile at the time

with the rest of the nation of Israel and they're in Persia in exile. And he in this first chapter

is hearing of the Jerusalem temple wall being destroyed. He's not there himself, but he hears word of it. And he's very

distraught. He's very downcast. He's very heartbroken. Now, Nehemiah at this time is working as

the cup bearer to the king of Persia. And so the king of Persia actually notices Nehemiah's heartbreak.

And if you know anything about what's happening in the

Bible at this time, a lot of these even pagan rulers at the time who are not Israel, oftentimes

God uses these leaders to carry out his will. So this Persian king asks Nehemi, hey, why are you heartbroken? What's wrong?

So Nehemiah responds and tells him, hey, this is what's wrong.

My homeland, the wall is broken down.

And I'm really sad about it.

And Nehemi even has the guts to ask permission of the king to return to Jerusalem to lead

the rebuilding of the wall. Not only that, but he also asks for supplies to build it. He asks for

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