Meditation on "Who do You Trust?" #5

Meditation on Trust #5

It’s the end of the work week and time for the weekend. In a conversation yesterday with a UNO junior, he told me clearly his agenda for the next three days was to study Spanish and have just enough time to party. So that’s pretty much the weekend: study and party. Your agenda might be similar. Or you might be in the thick of a paper and thinking of putting off the party until the job is done.

Nehemiah’s story is like the latter. He had a job to do and he wasn’t going to be happy until it was completed. It seems Nehemiah was in the field of engineering; his job was to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by attacking foreigners generations before. Though he was a servant to a foreign king, he went ahead and asked for permission to rebuild the walls of the “city of his fathers.” The king granted permission and he also provided for wood for the beams.

In a way, Nehemiah was rebuilding his life and the lives of his people by rebuilding the city. This is great urban planning. The Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce would have been excited. Just think of it: coffee and tea bars on every corner. Rug, clothing and bookshops in the Old Market. Special events around the holidays. This place that had once been a grand city had become an empty wasteland. But now comes a man, Nehemiah, with a plan, resources and dedication. He’s going to rebuild the city. Who knows? It might become a great city again. And certainly, its rebuilding will give honor and glory to God.

I’ve been thinking about this idea for some time and I propose it to you: God gets excited when we participate in the shift of our world of ruin to a world that’s robust. The larger purpose of our being on this planet and at UNO is not our degrees and training, valuable though they are. The larger purpose is the transforming of our selves and our world. Our degrees and our training can be much larger than a paycheck. Trusting in our larger purpose gives us hope.

Some wish to wait for others to take the lead. I’m hoping you will take a role in this cosmic shift. If you want to party about that this weekend, go ahead. Being part of God’s shift in our city is a big enough reason!






Nehemiah 2
1In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was served him, I [Nehemiah] carried the wine and gave it to the king. Now, I had never been sad in his presence before. 2So the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This can only be sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. 3I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad, when the city, the place of my ancestors’ graves, lies waste, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” 4Then the king said to me, “What do you request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5Then I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor with you, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my ancestors’ graves, so that I may rebuild it.” 6The king said to me (the queen also was sitting beside him), “How long will you be gone, and when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me, and I set him a date. 7Then I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors of the province Beyond the River, that they may grant me passage until I arrive in Judah; 8and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king’s forest, directing him to give me timber to make beams for the gates of the temple fortress, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy.” And the king granted me what I asked, for the gracious hand of my God was upon me.