Year 2, Day 50: Nehemiah 2 & 3

Waiting Upon the Lord

Four months after Nehemiah heard about the plight of Jerusalem he was given an opportunity to serve the Lord with respect to the burden that was placed on his heart.  Four months!  How many of us could wait four months to accomplish something if our spirit was troubled to the level of grief to which Nehemiah was troubled?

This tells us that we need to be patient.  We need to wait for God to prosper us rather than taking things into our own hands.  We need to wait for God to say that the time to act is now rather than jumping out ahead of God.  How difficult is this lesson!

However, we don’t need to just sit on our hands.  We don’t need to twiddle our thumbs while we wait for God to give us the divine “all clear.”  We need to prepare ourselves for the task.  Take a look at what Nehemiah is able to accomplish when he finally gets the attention of the king.  Nehemiah is able to explain his problem, invite the king into empathy for his problem, put out a proper timeline for the resolution of the problem, and make a few requests based on what the king might be able to do to make the resolution of the problem move along more smoothly.  Nehemiah may have patiently waited for God before actually acting, but he certainly didn’t wait for God to say “act” before planning to act!  Nehemiah was ready with a plan so that when God’s opportunity arrived he was absolutely ready to pounce.

Rabbit Trail: Discipleship

For me personally, I think this is really the point of the discipleship process.  The discipleship process helps keep us like a finely tuned motor – absolutely ready to roar into life once the gas pedal is pushed to the floor.  Daily prayer keeps us connected with God.  Reading and internalizing God’s Word keeps us mindful of God’s ways.  Relating to God’s Word as well as to the company of saints around us keeps us spiritually attuned to what God might be saying in our life.  Daily service reminds us of our servant nature so we are ready in line with God’s will when God’s timing is right.  Worship reminds us who it is that we are serving.  Giving of ourselves keeps us in a sacrificial mindset so when God’s timing is ready we do not mind making the sacrifices necessary to do His will.  For me, discipleship is all about preparing ourselves to do God’s will once God tells us that the time is right.

Nehemiah Comes to Jerusalem

Okay, back to Nehemiah’s story for a little bit.  When it comes time to inspect the problem, notice that Nehemiah largely keeps everything to himself.  He inspects at night so that he can focus on the task at hand without being distracted by all the other opinions of people in Jerusalem.  Even when it comes time to talk about repair he speaks to the officials first.  Nehemiah is careful to extend his influence only as far as he can manage it successfully.  Had Nehemiah cast his influence too far too fast, it would have given time for opposition to arise.

I think this is another important step that we as Christians can learn from.  How many of us suffer from casting too large of a net?  We set out with big grandiose plans and try to change everyone and everything that we meet.  Nehemiah’s example is the opposite.  Keep the plans manageable.  Keep the contacts manageable.  It is better to have many small successful steps than to have several large failures {or even several large moderate successes}.  A long line of small yet clear victories will be much more likely to produce good fruit in the long run than a modest chain of wide yet unexceptional victories. 

Rabbit Trail #2: Back to Discipleship

This is good advice for life in general, but it is great advice in the spiritual realm – especially with respect to discipleship!  I would rather deal with someone who has small daily moments of learning from God than a person who goes months or years between divine inspiration – even if those divinely inspired moments are significant.  I would rather deal with someone who worships God with routine even if the routine becomes a bit rote than deal with the person who seldom worship but has an incredible time in the few instances that they do worship.  A long line of small spiritual victories will be far more useful than several sporadic victories – even if those victories are significant.  The fruit of the steady life with far outweigh what little fruit comes from substantial yet sporadic growth.

Delegation

Then a really cool thing happened.  As we hear in chapter 3, Nehemiah modeled this approach to leadership for the people.  Nehemiah knew that the task of rebuilding the wall would simply be too daunting for any one person to undertake.  Again, it goes back to many great small steps being better than one large moderate one.  Nehemiah divides up the work into manageable chunks.  Nehemiah is the spiritual leader and he oversees the whole work.  But the individuals are responsible for accomplishing an amount of work that they can manage successfully.

Rabbit Trail #3: Back to Discipleship

Going back to the topic of spirituality and discipleship, this is perhaps the key.  Just like the walls of Jerusalem were neither built by a single person nor in a single day, our spiritual life is not built by a single spiritual moment nor built in a single spiritual day.  When we divide up the task of being spiritual into smaller more manageable pieces we can indeed be successful – far more successful than if we don’t!

Honestly, consider this point.  How daunting does it sound to say, “I’m going to be the spiritual person that God wants me to be each and every day for the rest of my life?”  On the other hand, how easy is it to agree to these tasks:

• I’ll spend 10 minutes in prayer to God.  I’ll actually make it easier on myself be making sure as a part of my prayer every day I will remember to give God glory, to thank Him for the spiritual mentors in my life, to pray for the people around me that need His presence in their life, to pray for those Christians in this world who are under persecution, to honestly repent of the sins that I committed since I last prayed repentance, to ask that He makes me humble to do His will, to ask Him to make me willing to talk about Him when He gives me an opportunity, to thank Him for the spiritual lessons I learned in the prior day, to thank God for giving me the promise of eternal life through the sacrifice of His Son.  {C’mon, how many of us honestly can’t spend 60 seconds on each of those ten topics?}
• I’ll worship God at least once a week.  {This isn’t hard…}
• I’ll read a chapter of the Bible every day and try to be in communication with at least one other person about what I read.  {Again, this isn’t hard.  In fact, if you are reading this then you are already pretty much doing it!}
• I’ll make sure I have at least one act of service in my life every day, and when I serve I will make it a point to pray to God thanking Him for giving me the opportunity to reflect His love.  {This isn’t hard.  It isn’t like service has to be big or grand every day…}
• I’ll try to talk to one person (Christian, non-Christian, or personal spiritual mentor) every day about something that God has taught me recently.  {This isn’t hard, either.  If you want to fulfill this one, leave a comment on this blog every day and you’ve begun it!  Trust me, I comment back!}
• I’ll give God out of my time, talents, and treasure (limits on each category set between you and God with advice potentially coming from a spiritual mentor).  {This might be the toughest one on the list, but it’s really not that big, either.}

Seriously, nothing on that list is unmanageable.  In fact, accomplishing that list could very well take less than 30 minutes a day {depending on how much you talk, of course.  I would have trouble keeping the 3rd and the 5th bullets to under a half-hour, but that’s just me!  LOL.  Besides, the goal isn’t to keep it under a half hour, I was just saying that it could be done that way!}.  

I think we can learn from Nehemiah’s approach here.  We need to plan so that we are ready to act.  When it is time to act, we need to divide up the task into manageable portions that bring about clear victories.  When we have clear manageable victories, we will be inspired on to greater and greater successes.  And like Nehemiah building a wall around a city, God will accomplish the impossible through us and in us.

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