If you’ve never read the book of Nehemiah, I’m gonna give you a real short summary. Ready? Here goes.
Nehemiah: “I’m gonna rebuild the wall around Jerusalem.”
Bad guys: “If you do we’ll kill you.”
Nehemiah: “Come at me bro. I dare you. I’ve got God on my side.”
Now that you have an exhaustive context of the story that would rival a commentary written by John MacArthur, let me point out an interesting part of the story. As threats of violence would come against the people of Jerusalem to stop building the wall, some people got nervous. Nehemiah addressed them saying don’t worry, the Lord will protect your families and your homes. Chapter 4 verse 17 says this:
“The laborers carried on their work with one hand supporting their load, and one hand holding a weapon.”
Nehemiah 4:17 NLT
I’m just gonna be honest, if I got a threat of violence against my family, I’d probably stop everything I was doing and hyper-focus on protecting myself. I wouldn’t go to work. I’d be paranoid! The fear would be crippling. Instead, these guys were just like, “Ok, give me a weapon while I keep working”.
They didn’t stop the work that the Lord had called them to. They kept going in spite of the threats. They were steadfast, believing that their obedience to the Lord would result in protection and blessing. If they had to fight, so be it. Even though their lives were at stake it didn’t phase them because their faith was authentic.
Personally, my threshold for derailment is a lot lower than the threat of my family being killed.
“I didn’t make that much money this month? What happened? What went wrong? Don’t talk to me about anything else right now, I need to figure this out immediately and handle it myself.”
“I’m not feeling well? I guess I’m useless today. Can’t do any work until I feel better. You’ve got to take care of yourself, you know? Self-care is too important to overlook.”
There will always be opposition. There will always be uncertainty. There will always be a reason not to do something. I’m not saying be unprepared (as is evidenced by the fact that the workers were holding weapons) but I am saying that there will always be faith that is required to overcome these things.
One of Satan’s biggest lies is getting us to believe “Well when certain things fall into place for me, then I can finally start doing (x).” If you believe that fill-in-the-blank is the will of God then just do it already. If God has ordained it, He will make it so.
Pickup your workload with one hand. Pickup a weapon with the other (not literally, please). Do what God is calling you to do today.