Eyes Up

Re:Verse passage – Nehemiah 1:1–3, 11 (day five)

If you have read the book of Nehemiah before, you know that the task to which Nehemiah was called to was not an easy one. At every step of the way, the challenges multiplied or got more difficult. Even after finishing the wall, the task did not get easier. The city had to be rebuilt. People needed to come back. Defenses had to be strategized and raised again. Life was not easy.

Most of us find ourselves in situations like these. Challenges keep coming. Things do not get easier at each step of life. Rather, new difficulties arise and make us long for those stages to be “finished.” We wait for things to get easier, but they sometimes never do. Raising kids is a good example of this. The sleepless nights of infancy are tough. Then come the difficulties of diapering and the toddler years. Then school years bring challenges of their own. Those are followed up by the teenage years, and then our kids are grown. Each stage is difficult to get through and makes us long for that stage to be over. Then, we find ourselves in a whole new challenging stage.

I’m sure Nehemiah felt this weight as they got further in to rebuilding. We will discuss these difficulties over the next three months during this study. But through every difficulty and challenge, we will see that the Lord was with Nehemiah and with His people. Nehemiah kept his eyes up, focusing on God as the only way to get through each challenge. He remembered the hope (proactive hope as Megan called it) the Lord brings. We can be assured that the Lord is with us, too, as we go through our difficulties and challenges. Whatever difficulties and challenges you are facing now, keep your eyes up and focus on the Lord.