I <3 Nehemiah

I just finished a good book; the book of Nehemiah. It was fresh. I like Nehemiah's simple style of telling his story. I like his no nonsense approach to dealing with the people of God, and their enemies. I like his prayer in chapter one. It's one of those prayers you can take and make your own, just as relevant today as it was back then.

Nehemiah longs to go to Jerusalem, and when the king asks him why he's so down, in that moment he prays to God and answers the king. I wish I would pray to God just before I give critical answers to critical questions.

Nehemiah solves problems in a bold new way. When the Israelites are threatened and harrassed while rebuilding the Jerusalem wall, Nehemiah just has them work with a weapon in one hand the whole time. Sanballat and Tobiah are two of my favorite bad guys in the Old Testament, because they demonstrate just how dumb it is to be a bad guy in light of God's power. And Nehemiah doesn't fall for any of their ploys, not even the one that tempts him to run to the temple for protection. When those guys try to cause trouble, Nehemiah just sends them the message "Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head." <-- NIV

Out of their heads they were! Out of their freakin' minds to be trying to mess with the Israelites under Nehemiah's inspiration, which was of course ultimately inspired by God.

There are several chapters made up of just a bunch of lists... but the significance of those lists is that they paint for us a picture of the people living in that time who worked day and night to repair the city of God and then they assembled togher "as one man" and stood and listened to the Law of Moses, and they realized, many for the first time hearing it, that they had an awesome God who loved them and had been looking out for them. And they worshipped Him... "the sound of rejoicing in Jerusalmen could be heard far away."

Having been to Jerusalem, I close my eyes and just visualize what it must have been like back in that day... to worship the God of the Universe from the spot on earth where He chose to make his home among His people.