My Bible reading plan had me on the book of Nehemiah this week. I love when God’s timing in my study of His Word lines up with what He is teaching me in life. For the last year, I have been immersed in bringing my Physical Therapy skills to a place that lines up with my professional goals. I took a 3-year part-time program and condensed to an 18-month full time intensive while continuing to work. At the completion of the program, I found myself exhausted and disconnected from my values and my family. Instead of operating at 80% capacity and leaving the other 20% available for quality time and hearing from God, I was operating at 110% capacity on the verge of a Chernobyl type melt down.
As I was reading in Nehemiah this week, I couldn’t help but reflect on how my experience and what God is teaching me parallels the lessons that God had for the Jews in Nehemiah as they too tried to return to their purpose and community with God. I also thought about a family member who had a walked away from drugs several years ago and the parallel that these lessons had in her life. Whatever it is that takes you away from the teachings of your faith and the protective covering of God, I think the lessons of Nehemiah are a good guide for how to return to that place of spiritual favor, purpose, and covering.
Background - By the time we get to the book of Nehemiah, the Jewish people have been delivered from slavery, given the Promised Land, seen years of favor and blessing, walked away from their faith, and suffered the consequences of their choices to pursue their own comfort and desires over the truth that had been handed down to them.
So let’s get started on...
8 Steps to Return to Your Faith and Reclaim Your Soul’s Purpose
From the book of Nehemiah. (I really wanted to make it 7 but Nehemiah didn’t grant me that symbolic privilege. 😀)
1. Acknowledge the problem, give it the gravity that it deserves, and ask for God’s help to change it, then step out of your perceived comfort where you are to pursue a return to where you are supposed to be. Nehemiah was the cupbearer to the King. He could have stayed right where he was, but he knew that was not God’s best for him or his people.
Neh 1:3-4- They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
2. Make a plan for your success- Whether you are walking away from overwork, addiction, or apathy, you have to make a plan for your success or you will be defeated and find yourself back in your old patterns. I recently did this with our family worship time. I have wanted to be more intentional about scheduling them but something always seems to get in the way. So this summer, I set Friday evenings as Spaghetti and Family worship nights. It is on everyone’s calendar and even if someone is missing, we are still holding it, dadgumit. We have a plan and we are executing it.
Neh 2:7-9 I also said to him, “If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah?8 And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the royal park, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?” And because the gracious hand of my God was on me, the king granted my requests. 9 So I went to the governors of Trans-Euphrates and gave them the king’s letters. The king had also sent army officers and cavalry with me.
3. Expect opposition and prepare to defend yourself. The enemy does not want you to succeed. He wants to continue to hold you captive and away from all that the Lord has for you. We saw the same thing in Nehemiah when the enemies of the Jews were threatened by their efforts to regroup. This picture of Nehemiah instructing the Jews to build with one hand but be prepared to fight with the other is a great reminder of how we should all step into God’s calling for our lives because it is guaranteed that we will face opposition.
Neh 4:17 Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, 18 and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me.
4. Practice the Biblical principles of service and generosity. I love that this is included here at the ½ way mark. This journey has the potential to be incredibly selfish and self-righteous but God places this check right here in the middle of the story. Don’t be motivated by your own advancement or self-service but place others before yourself even to the point of self-sacrifice. Pause in your journey for a moment and make the sacrificial choice to serve someone else in his or her suffering.
Neh 5: 10-13 I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let us stop charging interest! 11 Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the interest you are charging them—one percent of the money, grain, new wine and olive oil.” 12 “We will give it back,” they said. “And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.” Then I summoned the priests and made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised. 13 I also shook out the folds of my robe and said, “In this way may God shake out of their house and possessions anyone who does not keep this promise. So may such a person be shaken out and emptied!”
5. Remember the enemy is a sneaky one and he will use what seems right to deceive you into what is not. This has been especially true as I have tried to make room for more margin in my life. Seemingly good opportunities come my way, but I have to consider them not in light of how they sound but in light of what God is calling me to in that moment.
Neh 6: 10-13 One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you.”
11 But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Or should someone like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!” 12 I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. 13 He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.
6. Rehearse the faithfulness of God. I loved the picture in Chapter 8 of Ezra standing on a platform in front of the people and reading the account of God’s faithfulness. I can only imagine the energy that must have be present in that meeting and how it must have given the Jewish people what they needed to continue on the course.
We recently had a similar experience at our home. It was the 10-year anniversary of our daughter’s adoption from China. What I found was that when I asked God to help me remember those days, He was faithful to bring to mind all that He had done to bring her home. I wonder if in that moment for the Jews, remembering moved from a history lesson to spiritual celebration. We don’t remember for the sake of remembering but instead to celebrate the faithfulness of God.
Neh 8: 5-8 Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up. 6 Ezra praised the Lord, the great God; and all the people lifted their hands and responded, “Amen! Amen!” Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
7 The Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan and Pelaiah—instructed the people in the Law while the people were standing there. 8 They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read.
7. Confess your sins. Okay, initially I found it interesting that confession was not step one. I wonder if maybe confession as step one would have been more ritualistic on their part and maybe confession is more sincere at a point where they are invested in the process of restoration. Could it be that ritual performance without transformation is what landed the Jews here in the first place? Maybe confession after a little sweat investment and fearing for your life but choosing to stay anyway is good timing. That might be a sermon all by itself.
Neh 9:1-2 On the twenty-fourth day of the same month, the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads. 2 Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the sins of their ancestors.
8. Return to the community and practices that spur you on to good choice and God’s will for your life and then put systems in place in order to ensure ongoing success. For some this may be going back to church or small group. It may be returning to your family. For Nehemiah it was about the Jews walking away from marrying those of other faiths and returning both physically and spiritually to the people of their faith and culture. In the last 4 chapters, the Jewish people move back into Jerusalem and recommit themselves to the tenants of their faith while setting up parameters to help them succeed moving forward.
Last thought- There are a lot of things that I love about the book of Nehemiah and the lessons found there but I think my favorite is the overarching message that our loving God did not give up on his people but instead made a way for them to return to his promises and blessing. The enemy would love for us to believe that we have stepped too far away but what we see here is that such thinking is a lie. I hope these 8 (I still think it would be cooler if they were 7) principles help give you the energy and direction you need to step back into the life and fellowship with God that you were designed to walk in.
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