When I got to the hostel we’re staying at, the hosts wrote us all notes, giving us either a book of the Bible or a passage that was on their hearts for us to read. I was encouraged to read Nehemiah, so I did. Reading Nehemiah has given me a new love for the lord.
This book is written by Nehemiah, a cupbearer to king Artaxerxes.Basically :Nehemiah is an important guy who is challenged to do an impossible task. At the time, Nehemiah is appointed governor of Judah and is called to rebuild the walls despite opposition from Israel’s enemies.
Nehemiah succeeds in this seemingly impossible task to rebuild the walls with the Lord’s help, he is an honorable and just leader who helps the oppressed and he’s an all around great guy who does great things with great faith.
The main thing I brought away from this was the humility of Nehemiah. Being written in first person, Nehemiah shares his thoughts and feelings on what he’s going through and he doesn’t hold back. Nehemiah had just gotten word of the desolation of Jerusalem and said, “as soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” These words are so stinkin powerful! A man who had his city torn down, weeping at the destruction of his people, continued to fast and pray. He praised God for who He was. The fact of the Lord’s goodness never changed in his mind, not even for a second.
I can’t say that I’m in the same faith space or even realm as Nehemiah, but God has been chipping away at me recently, showing me what it looks like to have that Nehemiah faith.
“let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants” -an excerpt from Nehemiah’s prayer
This is a prayer that I had for myself in this time being here in Thailand. I wanted God to hear me just as He had heard Nehemiah.
In our ministry, our team has been working at the wildflower home, and to be honest, it’s easy to get frustrated. Our team has been shoveling mounds of dirt as tall as us into wheelbarrows and then taking the dirt to a separate area, and we’ve been doing this for the past week. For me, it’s been so easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Its hard to see what this work is for, why we’ve been called to it but in the same way I know it’s where I need to be.
In the book of Nehemiah, one of his main struggles is trying to redirect the people of Jerusalem to be dependent on the lord once again. When God’s people took their eyes off of Him, their lives crumbled. This is something the lord has been teaching me daily. It’s been a daily choice to depend on Him fully, and he’s humbled me to the extent of stripping me of everything except Him. Familiar things are 9,000 miles away but He hasn’t left my side. Comfortable things are long gone, sweating 24/7 is my new normal and living with 40 other people has become my new home. Dependence on the lord has become practical and tangible in these days, and I’m learning from the example that Nehemiah set- to continue in prayer, not just when I feel like I need God. It’s a humbling thought to know I have to depend on the Lord’s strength and not my own, “their hands will get too weak for the work and it will not be completed. But I prayed, “now strengthen my hands.””
God has been seen through it all, in the smiling Thai people every where I go, at ministry, seeing how my teammates care for me and one another, and in the sweet dreams the lord gives me. There’s so much goodness in this time, including learning to let God carry me on His shoulders.
