An Easily Overlooked Example Worth Imitating This Weekend

Today’s Bible reading is Nehemiah 7 and Hebrews 11.

You know their names. Abel. Enoch. Noah.

You remember their stories. Abraham. Sarah. Isaac. Jacob.

Thanks to passages like Hebrews 11 in the Bible, they endure as examples of the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Millennia later, when we think of faith, we think Joseph. Moses. Samuel. David.

But don’t overlook Hananiah. Today’s Bible reading uncovered a name easily overlooked and long forgotten by most. This time next week, you won’t remember his name in the way you remember those names in Hebrews 11. So who was Hananiah? In Nehemiah 7:1-2, recorded for all time…

Now when the wall had been built and I had set up the doors, and the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed, I gave my brother Hanani and Hananiah the governor of the castle charge over Jerusalem, for he was a more faithful and God-fearing man than many.

Hananiah didn’t build an ark. He didn’t cross the Red Sea as on dry land. He didn’t stop the mouths of lions or receive the dead back by resurrection. He was just “a more faithful and God-fearing man than many,” the sort of person Nehemiah would have desperately needed.

That’s a goal you and I can wrap our minds around this weekend. Relatable footsteps we can follow. Hananiah was reliable and he feared God. In his own way, he served the purposes of God and his peers in his own generation.

God isn’t asking you to deliver a message to a Pharaoh or face off with a Philistine giant or wander about for the rest of your life in deserts and mountains and caves. But he does expect you to be faithful, and to fear him. At work. On the road. In school. At home. Faithful and God-fearing. Like Hananiah. You won’t find his name in Hebrews 11, but it’s a name worth remembering this weekend. Most of all, it’s an example worth imitating.