Year 2, Day 56: Nehemiah 9

Recounting the History

I am personally moved by this passage from Nehemiah 9 today.  Now, I know what you are saying in your head.  “How is it that this simple retelling of all the history we spent the last year reading about can move you?”  Well, let me explain that a little bit.

In my other blog (Vigor of 12) I am walking through the book of Acts in small steps: 3 to 4 verses at a time.  We are currently walking through Acts 7 – which is the chapter that deals with Stephen before the Sanhedrin.  I find myself reading here in Nehemiah 9 a similar retelling to what Stephen is saying before the Sanhedrin.  So my emotional movement begins in the synergy I find today between my two blogs.  {I love it when God brings two separate things together like that.}

Additionally, ever since we started reading through Ezra and Nehemiah as a part of this blog I have become more keenly aware of where this book takes place in history.  The action of this chapter is happening roughly around 445 B.C.  Stephen stands before the Sanhedrin roughly 35 AD.  There is less than 500 years that separates the two accounts in scripture.

Rebellion Comes In Many Forms

Now, if we put those two things together what we end up is a beautiful perspective on how grossly human beings swing along spiritual pendulums.  For at least 500 years before Nehemiah the people lived as though they could care less about what God wants.  They reject His ways in favor of their own disobedience.  But in the 500 years after Nehemiah we end with the same result but for the opposite reason!  In the 500 years following Nehemiah the Hebrew people become so obsessed with following the Law that they end up completely rejecting God’s work again – this time in Jesus Christ, the Messiah!

I guess it just impresses upon me how many different ways we as human beings can be so rebellious.  We can be rebellious and ignore God completely.  We can be rebellious and take what God has given to us yet push it to such an extreme that we are still missing what God is doing in our midst.  It seems almost unfair that humanity has such a difficult time pursuing God because of our human inability to simply focus on Him.

That is actually where the problem rests within this matter.  The Hebrews prior to Nehemiah focused on their own desires and thus missed God’s work completely.  The Hebrew people who followed Nehemiah – and followed Ezra, for the record – focused on their own desire to uplift the Law – and they missed God’s work completely.  You see, when human beings focus so intently upon the desires of our own hearts we miss God completely.  When we focus so intently upon having our way – even if we are convinced that our way is Biblical as the Pharisees no doubt were convinced in the time of Jesus – we miss God.  We are either focused on finding God or we are not.  We are either focused on letting God lead us or we are instead interested in forcing God to follow us.

Focus

That’s really a scary thing for me.  It is easy for me to become focused on something else – even something that I think is godly.  It is easy for me to focus on what I believe to be God’s will and it is even easier for me to use scripture to assert my position.  But the reality is that if I am focused on anything other than God then I am … well … focused on something other than God.

Let me give a few examples. 

• It is very easy for me to become focused on making sure that my sermon is good for Sunday.  I can search long and hard for great illustrations.  I can practice it until the words flow effortlessly out of my mouth.  And it seems inherently good that I should want to preach the best “word” possible.  But the reality is that if in my desire to preach the best word I forget to listen to God, then I am only preaching my words.  And that’s ultimately very bad.
• It is very easy for me to become focused on reading God’s Word daily.  I am even in a pretty good routine about it most days.  It is one of the first tasks I check off of my list every day.  This is a good thing.  It is good for me to long to put in my time with God first thing.  However, if the focus becomes placed upon doing the work and accomplishing the task then I stop listening to God.  If I become more enthralled with my blog post than I am about the lesson that God teaches me, then I am clearly in error.  My focus needs to be on listening to God, not asserting my agenda.

That’s really what I find myself reflecting on as I read this passage in Nehemiah and think ahead to Stephen recounting the same stories to the Sanhedrin.  In both places we hear the importance of stopping to listen to God rather than asserting ourselves.  Life is about finding God, not asserting myself.  Life is about following God, not accomplishing my will.  Life is about making humble disciples of Christ, not about glorifying my own ideas and my own agenda.

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