Opposition

Nehemiah 4:1-2 ESV
“Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews.  And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish…”

Nehemiah and the Jews went back to Jerusalem to restore their homeland after 70 years of exile. It was like starting over from scratch. Actually worse, because what was left of their homeland was broken down and burned buildings and a completely destroyed Temple, their representation of where God dwelt. God wanted Nehemiah to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem first. But there was so much debri, it looked impossible.

Nehemiah had no skilled labors, only families to do the construction. If that wasn’t bad enough, Sanballot an enemy wanted the Jews to stop rebuilding their homeland and the Jerusalem wall and just go away. They harassed the Jews and got inside their heads, their goal was to create such fear with the Jews that they would stop the work and fail.

We get that sometimes. It seems like things get in the way of our progress, people tell us we cannot accomplish our goals and treat us like failures. If God has given us a vision, He has provided everything we need to accomplish that vision, just like He did with Nehemiah. Will we have opposition? Of course, and God knows we will have opposition, we just have to determine to rely on God and press through.

Prayer:
Father, we live in hostile territory and we have opposition at every had but we can still win when we lean on You. Help everyone of us to persevere, keep moving forward, call out to You, and press on. In Your name Father? Amen!