You want to do something great.

We all want to do great things. We all want to change the world. We all want to do something that matters, to be someone who matters. I do. You do, too.

We don’t have to be in charge, we tell ourselves. In fact, we’re not sure we could be. But we’re tired of just doing stuff for someone else’s agenda.

You and I have both read too many management books, leadership books, greatness books. They are full of great ideas, promises, guidelines. But maybe we need to look at the Bible. After all, people who hang around church have heard that the Bible is a place to look for significance. But we don’t know where to start.

I’d like to suggest the story of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah is a book in the Old Testament, between Ezra and Esther. It used to be packaged with Ezra. In most top-selling Bibles, it’s not any more. It hasn’t been for many centuries. And Nehemiah is the lead character in that book.

Nehemiah seems like a textbook. I think it is. I think God knows exactly the story he wanted to tell about a life depending on him and doing a great work. So when we read it, it should come as no surprise that it makes sense.

I’ve read Nehemiah several times during the past four decades. During the summer of 2012, I started reading it differently. I taught it with a couple of small groups. I wrote at 300wordsaday.com about the study I was doing. I decided to write a weekly newsletter about what I was learning. And as I was writing the first issue, I discovered I was having a conversation with Nehemiah.

No, really.

And this is a collection of those conversations, occurring over coffee and tea. I know, of course, that coffee was identified as a drink a thousand years or so after Nehemiah lived. But for a guy who shows up in 445 BC, he seems to enjoy it. And some of our conversations are filling in things not covered in the book of Nehemiah and the rest of the Old Testament. But I have worked to maintain the integrity of the Biblical story.