Building Through Brokenness

I have come to appreciate the moments when God has whispered a Bible chapter or verse to read that has brought me clarity. I had such a moment this morning.

Flipping through the Bible to get to 1 Corinthians for a Bible study on Jehovah Nissi, I found myself in Nehemiah, staring at chapter 4. I was called to read it.

The chapter deals with repairing the walls of Jerusalem out of rubble. It deals with individuals and ethnic groups despising the efforts of the Jews to rebuild the wall, first with mocking words ("Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble--burned as they are?"), and then with threats of violence, once these groups realized at the halfway point of the rebuilding project that the work was going well.

How did the Jews respond to the negativity that began to swarm around them? They prayed to God and ultimately posted a guard at the wall.

But, after hearing from Jews who were privy to the conversations of the foreign enemies, they came to realize one guard wouldn't be enough to squash the antagonistic desires of Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the men of Ashdod, who became even more bold with their threats.

A decision was made to devote half the Jewish men to protecting the work efforts, and the other half to doing the actual building. However, those who carried materials took to having a weapon at the ready in one hand. Even the builders wore swords. All men stayed within Jerusalem, to serve as watchmen at night.

Additionally, a trumpeter was on call to sound out an alarm in the event of an impending attack. In case a need to fight arose, those who were working on the massive project could regroup and be prepared to defend their rebuilding efforts. "Our God will fight for us," Nehemiah said of what would happen after any necessary trumpet call.

The words that kept them going were these: "Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes."

I found this to be a powerful passage. And I also later realized that God can be seen in the light of Jehovah Nissi, "the Lord is my banner," through this passage, keeping in line with my initial Bible study focus. No actions concerning God are ever wasted!

What struck me most about this chapter is that the city was literally in a state of brokenness--its former walls a heap of shattered stones. Its inhabitants needed to fight hard, harder than anticipated, to keep moving forward on fortifying the city limits.

This parallels common internal strife we face. We often find ourselves crawling tenaciously out of a period of brokenness, sitting in a pile of rubble, yet holding a remnant of faith that things will get better. We look to God to pull us through, and often challenges may seem to build even as we grow in the strength with which God has blessed us.

That is when we have to fight even more, to not give up, but to figuratively rebuild our spirits with one hand and fight with the other. But we have to fight smarter, by ensuring that our strategy to advance and overcome is truly rooted in God, and not in our own limited power. Let God be the banner in our fight for wholeness and peace, the actual and symbolic sign of victory over nagging internal struggles.

Ultimately, the wall was rebuilt, and the enemies' ambitions were deflated. Nehemiah 6:15-16 reads: "So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God."

What we can take away from the passage is that to prevail in an internal struggle, it may take splitting focus on work and protection. It may take being on guard for your spirit overnight--when we are often most vulnerable to attacks of doubt and fear from the enemy--to begin the hard work of rebuilding again in the morning. It may take more than a day. But, victory is at hand. Under the banner of God, fight for your peace and wholeness. When the trumpet of alarm sounds, run to Him, and let Him lead the way. The enemy can't help but lose confidence when faced with a work of God in you.