“Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon.” Nehemiah 4:17
One of the things that I often pray over my family is Nehemiah 4:17 - that we would be aware and on guard, protecting our family in prayer even as we do the daily work of life.
For months I’ve been praying for families. I’ve been asking God to restore broken and hurting families, to restore Godly leadership at home. To draw fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, back to Himself and teach them how to lead and live in a way that glorifies Him and heals this hurting world. I know that He does these things because I’ve watched Him restore my own, little by little, year by year since cancer snatched us right to the bottom of a deep, dark pit.
I’ve been reading Nehemiah this week because that just happens to be where I am in my current trek through the Bible, and I cannot help but see some parallels with what is happening in the world right now. Nehemiah, a Jewish man and the cupbearer for King Artaxerxes, went to work sad one day because some of the Israelites who had returned to Jerusalem from captivity were in distress. The city walls had been torn down and burned so there was no protection for them. After talking to God about it, Nehemiah shared his worry with the king and the king sent him to Jerusalem to repair the wall.
When construction started, their enemies began to harass and threaten them and the workers became afraid that they would be attacked. Nehemiah did two things: he reminded them that God had sanctioned the work and would protect them and he stationed armed guards around the work. His response was both faithful (“Remember the Lord, great and awesome...” v. 14) and practical (he set a guard v. 16). When the walls were finished, more Jewish people returned from their captivity. All the people gathered to celebrate the completion of the wall, and Ezra, the priest, read the book of the Law. The people stood up, recognizing the importance of the reading of God’s word in their holy city after their return from exile.
Now, it wasn’t all easy-peasy after that; the people had spent years in captivity in a pagan culture and developed some practices that went against all of God’s plans for them. Nehemiah had a big job of reinstituting the Jewish culture, retraining God’s chosen people to be holy before God, but he kept up the work, hard conversation by hard conversation.
While I read and think on this story, I can’t help but reflect on this forced return to our homes, the cancellation of extra-curicullar activities that keep us busy and separate from our families. I’m not knocking the extra things we do to make our lives full - the Lord knows we spend 4 nights a week out of the house during soccer season and I firmly believe sports are good for my kids.
But y’all, we’ve been given a chance to rebuild the walls around our families, to shore up the weak spots and rehang the gates, to protect them from a world that never stops trying to kill, steal, and destroy. We have an opportunity to retrain ourselves to be a holy people, to seek and trust God. Will you? Will you do the work, with a shovel in one hand and the Sword of the Spirit in the other?
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