Day 22 - March 17, 2007
Nehemiah 6:1-14
This is a little section of Nehemiah where, once again, the leader and the vision are in danger of being diluted through distraction. Once the wall is completed, the enemies of Nehemiah seek to meet with him. At first they invite him to a ‘meeting’, but when Nehemiah refuses their offer, they raise the stakes by threatening him through the use of trumped up charges of Nehemiah as an insurrectionist. Again, our hero will have none of it.
Here’s the part I love. It’s in 6:3: “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave and come down to you?” He’s doing a GREAT WORK. It’s the work of establishing the testimony of the Lord, so that there’s a life, a home, a church, where the Lord’s name is portrayed with ever increasing clarity.
This GREAT WORK is our work as well. Those things we do in our lives that will result in Christ being seen more clearly, whether in our home, church, or our own hearts, are GREAT WORKS. As such, we’d be wise to identify our great works, and persevere in them. Collectively, I believe God is calling us to a great work; namely the work of serving our city with the good news of hope that is found in Christ, and equipping leaders to do the same throughout the world. Anything that doesn’t help us do this could rightly be called a distraction, and so our staff and church council need to continually focus on the centrality of our calling to make Christ’s life visible.
But there’s individual application as well. Each of us is involved in great works. We’re building dwelling places of God in our homes through the pursuit of intimacy, truth telling, forgiveness, sacrificial love, and a trusting responsiveness to one another. Then there’s our role as parents – and our role as children to our parents. In each instance, God is inviting us to do GREAT WORK. The same is true in each of us individually – as we carry out the work of building and shaping our hearts so that Christ can be seen through our lives. This requires prayer, meditation, silence, Sabbath rest, fellowship – and each of these are GREAT WORKS. As well, we are called to practical works of service which make the life of Christ visible – works which can take diverse forms such as helping someone rebuild an engine in their car, visiting the elderly, befriending someone in need, or spending the night in a homeless shelter. Why should we be distracted from that which has eternal value?
Lord, if we are to be involved in your great work, both in and through us, we need to know that to which you are calling us. I pray that you would guide us each into a greater clarity of our callings, both at the macro and micro level, so that we might know with certainty the things to which you are calling us. And then Lord, having seen our calling, let us be whole hearted in our pursuit of it. We are, as the hymnist has said so well, “prone to wander.” Yet you call us back to the road of fruitfulness. As you do, may we have ears to hear, so that each day may be lived fully and wholly for you. And we’ll thank you for the adventure that awaits us as we follow you. In Your Great Name… Amen
posted by Richard Dahlstrom @ 3:02 PM
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