Today's readings are Nehemiah 5.1-16 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Neh.+5.1-16 ), Nehemiah 6.1-9 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Neh.+6.1-9 ), Nehemiah 6.15-16 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Neh.+6.15-16 ), and 1 Timothy 4.1-16 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=1+Tim.+4.1-16 ).
In today's instant society, where I wonder what's happened if I am on hold on the telephone for more than about15 seconds (compare this to the time when communication happened by letter and those letters were carried hundreds of miles by people who covered 20 miles a day) it is often easy to give up quickly. Almost every week I hear of someone who has become a Christian and wants to be a pastor starting a church, wants to write biblical commentaries, wants to do this, that, or the other - right away.
While we don't want to discourage anyone and we do want to confess that our Lord and Savior can change people's lives dramatically, giving them direction and preparing them for all sorts of service amazingly quickly, let's look at Nehemiah for a moment. He has returned to Jerusalem from his imprisonment in servitude. He is in charge of rebuilding. And we see in chapter 5 that he is serving in this way for twelve years. It's easy to look at the beginning of the book of Nehemiah and think, "So he's going to go, do a job, and get it finished. Building a wall. No fuss, no muss, a few months and it's done." But this was not the case. He spent years laboring to complete a project which really didn't go so well.
What would our thoughts be? In this age of planting local churches in forty days of frenzy, mass mail marketing to draw in a crowd of people and make a growing, thriving church congregation that can plant another church every three to five years - yes, that's what "everyone" seems to say is one of the indicators of a healthy church - how do we deal with discouragement? How do we deal with the situation that requires our long term care and labor? How do we deal with twelve years of work for little or no reward?
Nehemiah is no failure. He is a man doing what God has appointed. Be bold enough to wait on our Lord. He will bring his work to fruition in his good time.
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