Have you been let down by something (someone) you counted on to make your life worth living?

Perhaps it’s your spouse that you are finding out to be disappointing (newly weds). Maybe it’s your children you have poured your life into who are going very wrong. Perhaps a career you have identified yourself with all these years is coming to an end?

Then, your story is in the Book of Nehemiah. Your temple (what you counted on) has been destroyed. Your walls are in disrepair. (Your sense of worth and confidence)

In the Book of Nehemiah, the Israelites, who have been in exile for 70 years because of their sins and rebellion against God, come back to their own land and find out that their temple has been destroyed and the walls of Jerusalem badly damaged. This was a reminder to them of the consequences of their sins and rebellion.

Perhaps you identify with the consequences? Broken relationships. Damaged bodies. Financial ruins. Meaningless repetition of a frivolous life?

Nehemiah starts rebuilding the wall. God hasn’t abandoned them completely. Rather, God is disciplining them for their own good. And the only way that was going to be done was to throw away everything that didn’t fit in the lives of His people. (This included throwing off their just-married foreign wives and the children they had by them…)

Let us start rebuilding our walls. It will be painful to do so. We will have to throw off some things (ones) we value very much. But unless we are willing to trust God and follow His will, our walls will forever lie in disrepair and our lives continue to exist in meaninglessness and joylessness…..

Why would you continue to live like that?

PH