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.