That is seriously impressive. I have no idea how much attention to detail and maintenance it must have taken to get the car to run for 576,000 miles. I always just hope I can make it 200K miles. Apparently I dream small.
It always amazes me how often you have to come back to something and radically refocus on the main thing all over again. If you don’t you will often wish you had.
Through the process of trying to bring our family together, Jenny and I, have often found it easy to get distracted with frustrations. Constantly there was the temptation to lose focus and react from emotion. Every time we would have to catch our breath and come back to God praying that His will be done and that He see us through. Each time He did just that. Still we had to ask forgiveness for our lack of faith in the face of His proven track record.
Israel faced the same issue, except they hadn't refocused in time. They found themselves scattered among the nations and living in service to a foreign king. God had warned them time and time again and they chose to not listen. They simply would not maintain their relationship with Him.
So after Nehemiah led them to restoration of their security and testimony, after taking inventory and acknowledging the work of God, and after celebrating God’s work with those around the; they assembled as one. To gloat? Nope.
9:1 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. 2 And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3 And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God. 4 On the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani; and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God. 5 Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
6 “You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. 7 You are the Lord, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful before you, and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
The people gathered to worship God and confess their sin. The next two chapters are full of an amazingly transparent and heartfelt prayer. A prayer that recognizes God’s glory and lays out their sin. At the end of the prayer the people make a new covenant with God. They promised to submit to Him, obey His laws, and maintain their testimony.
They bound themselves to a radical commitment to maintaining the witness of God’s presence in their lives for the entire world to see.
Builders will inevitably come to the place where they must confess the past failures that brought them to a place of rebuilding their lives around Jesus. Not simply acknowledge to God that it happened. They need to publicly admit and turn around, away from those life styles. This is perhaps one of the most impactful testimonies a Builder has to offer.
You must be able to be transparent and do so without motivation for attention or sympathy; rather with the hope that God gets glory for where you were and where you are now.
However, if we are to make this public testimony then we must also make a commitment. Our testimony does not maintain itself. This is why Paul said fight the good fight and run the race as to win the prize. It takes a lot of intentional effort and commitment.
We worship God for who He is and for His love and mercy towards us and we couple that with the awesome power of our testimonies of His work and we will see people drawn to God. If we maintain that testimony then we will see skeptics won over in astonishment.
Because a Builder is always working to rebuild another area of their life around Christ, the idea of community involvement becomes even stronger. Look at the incredibly long list of names signed to that contract, and the great amount of people present for it’s commitment. A Builder needs accountability and support from his community of believers in order to continue working and maintain the testimony already established.
A work maintained, however, can become and impressive and beautiful thing.
It also places a significant piece of our lives at peace.
At this point I wanted to invite you, if you are facing a major event in your life that you feel has brought things down around your head. If you have read these posts and wish to comment, share your story, ask for prayer, or offer an opinion please feel free too.
You may do so by leaving a comment here on the blog, or by sending me an e-mail at livingthez@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you and be whatever encouragement that I might be able to be.
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