SQUIRREL...!

We have been looking at Nehemiah for the last few weeks focusing for the most part on the nature of his prayer and perseverance. It seems at every difficulty he turns to God in for strength and direction. The last chapter we tackled dealt with some pretty neat problems solving principles about staying focused on the task at hand. One of my favorite movie characters comes from the movie Up. It is the dog, Dug, who can talk. This dog is beautiful illustration of our first principle: staying focused on the goal. It seems everytime Dug gets some traction, something grabs his attention, "Squirrel!" This of course is funny for the audience, but we all know how this can happen. In Nehemiah 6:1-2, Nehemiah is tempted to get sidetracked from what he knew was God's vision for his life. Something that looked really important was placed before him. Maybe it was important, but was it really God's best for him? That is the question we need to address on a daily basis, maybe multiple times. The writer of Hebrews tell us to fix our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). Many other times in scripture we are told to maintain our focus on God's word and ways then we will know His will. How easy is it to become short sighted and loose track of the vision? I would say extremely! This is where Nehemiah gives us another principle to guide us through tough times. Sometimes the focus is directed from an outside force. In the case of Nehemiah, it was a few people making false accusations about him. There were two types accusations made about Nehemiah, both are destructive if not dealt with correctly. The first was an exageration which made him look better than he was. The second was designed to make him look bad. In both cases, Nehemiah faced them with the truth. He knew what the truth was, but not only that, the people around him trusted him to tell the truth. Look at the first lie: the wall is complete. Nehemiah was being tempted to lie to himself and others and believe the wall was done, when it was not. Now it seems a tiny oversight, but if Nehemiah agreed with the lie, the next lie, the one intended to bring him down in front of all his people would have been a hard one for all to get over. Facing any lie with the truth is important. If someone is going to lie when the going is good, how much more will they lie when things are going bad? Look how this all connects: Good things said about us exagerating our abilities can lead us to think more highly of ourselves and get us off track with God's vision. This is in the same way degrating gossip can lead us down to self-destructive tendancies getting us off track yet again. How do we deal with all of this you may be asking? This leads us to the next practice of Nehemiah: prayer and dependancy on God. This is the only way to keep a healthy perspective on life in this deceptive world in which we live. Our daily prayer for strength and wisdom should lead us in the direction of Christ and not away from Him. One final thought, 1 Corinthians 1:30-31 give us the nature of where we should focus. Our wisdom and hope needs to be in Him who has become both for us, Christ Jesus. If you are going to boast, boast in the LORD.

Honesty, Chaos, and Other Things

As I sit and contemplate the past week of my study in Nehemiah, one thing hits me: how easy Nehemiah takes everything. I'm not saying it is easy for him, don't get me wrong. There had to be a time, maybe not captured in his account when he felt alone and isolated (even among his own people). From the account however, he seems to have unswerving faith in the God of Heaven. In this week's readings from chapter 6, one idea I looked at was the simple act of honesty. Part of me goes back to the song by Billy Joel and know its such a lonely word, but what we need in this world. Honesty in the little things seems to be the easiest to break. Those little white lies we tell so not to hurt feelings or show how scared or worried we might be. I have to tell you: those might be the easiest to tell, but they are also some of the most difficult to recover from. Take Nehemiah; in the first verse of chapter 6 his opponents say the wall is complete. The truth of the matter was the wall was not complete and Nehemiah faced that lie with his first words by telling the truth, "the gates have yet to be put into place." He could have entered into the lie and continued the lie, but at what cost? I think the hope and prayer from Nehemiah was that God would bless the decision made to correct the lie and so bless the construction of the wall. Makes sense to me. So what does this do to the everyday? When we look at the reasons why we compromise the truth and inflate reality to make ourselves look better what does it really do? We may think it doesn't harm anyone but ourselves, but what is the fallout. The other night I watched the original Jurassic Park. I really loved the book and the movie was great too, but I was taken aside by the mention of the Chaos Theory. I will admit, when I read the book I got really hooked on this Theory's idea of everything being intertwined. In the movie, Malcolm is trying to explain the theory to another scientist. He says something along the lines of, "a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil and it causes a rain storm in New York." Now, this is not exactly what he said, but get the point here...the little white lie you tell someone through the course of your day could eventually lead to the destruction of the relationship to the person you lied to. That little compromise leads to bigger compromises. I looked at King David and his act of indiscretion with Bathsheba(2 Samuel 11). Not an act of indiscretion, but sin led him to a cover-up scheme, then to a murder, and to another cover-up scheme. Each time the lie escalated to a greater sin. It was not until Nathan rebuked David did he seek forgiveness. If David had been honest with the temptation the beginning, he would not have needed to deal with the sin in the first place. He is still human as one young lady would tell me in my church. Yes indeed! Back to Billy Joel's words about honesty...it is such a lonely word. Sometimes when we stick to the truth it is unpopular and causes us to feel like we are all alone with no where to turn. I know by experience and trusting in God, He will honor the truth every time. Yes it may not be the most popular thing, but it is the only thing. As we finish Nehemiah 6, there is a rumor started about him making plans to become king and people are coming to kill him. Now I assume word got out about this, but because Nehemiah faced the truth at every turn, it was stopped and people did not believe the rumors. He was not willing to compromise what he knew to be true from God. It was not easy to stay true for Nehemiah, but it is some much easier to keep track of the truth and trust God's got his back. I think it would be a better place to live in this life if we all kept our eyes fixed on the truth. The undeniable truth of God.

Getting Started with Nehemiah

Restarting my blog after a number of years has been a difficult thing to do. Its always been out on the web, but a place I just never go. Earlier this year, I did a study in the Gospels just before Easter. I also wrote a complementary devotion and study to go along with it. Many of the individuals participating did not want it to end. However, trying to keep up with writing a daily devotional for 30 days was hard to keep up. But lately I have been feeling the urge to begin again, just not on the grand scale I was keeping up before. So, here I am. A little different format, but I will keep up at least once a week. I have been reading preaching and teaching a study in the book of Nehemiah. He is one of the greats when it comes to leadership in both the Bible and the world. It has been a good number of years since I last did any teaching out of Nehemiah, and I have gained much insight in the present study. One of the amazing things I don't think I picked up on before was Nehemiah was not a church leader. He was a normal business guy doing a job for the king. Minding his own business, when someone called on him. At this point in the book, it was not God who called on him personally. It was a few of his countrymen who brought a problem to Nehemiah. Whether or not he could do anything didn't seem to be the question. The Scripture says when Nehemiah heard the report of how terrible his homeland was falling apart, he sat down and wept, mourned, and fasted (Nehemiah 1:4). He did not stop there. The next step was to take it to the LORD in prayer. I am teaching about Nehemiah the man of prayer and perseverance. This is what defined him as a leader and should define us as followers of Christ. Many times in his own teaching, Jesus told his followers to persevere and stand up under trials and difficulties. My favorite of these passages is John 16:33: "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." There is so much more the book of Nehemiah will tell us, but most importantly to take everything to the LORD in prayer first. I guess to follow prayer, is to wait expectantly for an answer. We have to keep in mind the answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no, and many times wait. There are other answers, but for me the hardest is the waiting.