Nehemiah 6:3–4: “So I [Nehemiah] sent messengers to them, saying, ‘I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?’ But they sent me this message four times, and I answered them in the same manner.”

November 8th, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

The enemies of Nehemiah and the Jews had been trying to stop them from repairing the wall and gates around Jerusalem. Now the wall was completed, and all that was left was to hang the doors at the gates. Again their enemies rose up to try and stop them. They asked Nehemiah to come and meet them outside the city. But he knew they were trying to lure him into a trap, so he sent back this message: “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down.” Nehemiah was doing what God had called him to do, and he was not willing to allow anything to distract him from it.

Every single servant of the Lord needs to adopt Nehemiah’s attitude about life. We all need to be able to say “no” to anything that would distract us from doing what God has called us to do, whether it’s the enemy’s attempts to get us off track or our own failures. We are all imperfect people, flawed and stumbling along the road of life. Oxford professor C.S. Lewis wrote, “If only the will to walk is there—God is pleased with our stumbles.” Our heavenly Father knows when we are trying and when we are not. All that we need to be is willing to try, determined to hang on to Him, and we will be well enough. Someone once asked Paul Harvey, the journalist and radio commentator, to reveal the secret of his success. “I get up when I fall down,” he said.

“LORD, help us to see what You have called us to put our hand to, and then give us the wisdom and strength to not let anything pull us away from that.”