Nehemiah

 A very long time ago, when I lived in Thunder Bay, my pastor preached through Nehemiah. I don't remember everything he preached (I don't even remember every book he preached through), but two of the Nehemiah sermons have stuck in my head and I remember them every time I read Nehemiah.

The first is from the very beginning of the book, when Nehemiah asks about Jerusalem, hears what is happening, prays, and plans. I think the sermon was titled "Look Out, Look Up, Look In" (or something close to that). The general idea is to know what is happening, pray about it, and see how you can help. My memory is pretty short on details; I just know that I've remembered it at various times when I've felt overwhelmed. First I look properly at what it happening, then I pray about it, then I think about what to do about it. It works much better than my temptation to worry about it until it's even more overwhelming and then pray about it.

The second comes from the list of people building the wall in chapter 3. It lists groups and people who worked on the wall as well as what part they worked on. The think I remember is the Tekoites who are mentioned twice as making repairs, but the first mention adds that their nobles did not support the work. It seems to be generally agreed that the nobles felt that the work was beneath them and they refused to stoop to manual labor. The question, if I remember correctly, was: "How do you want to be remembered? As someone who did the work of the Lord or someone who refused?"

This read-through, I made a list of people who are mentioned as working on the wall; specifically, I looked for the groups who aren't usually thought of as builders: priests, goldsmiths, perfumers, officials, daughters, and merchants. None of them would have been used to building walls, but all of them helped. 

Sometimes I think that we get stuck in "this is who I am" and forget that we may be needed to serve in other ways, for a greater or lesser period of time. I'm pretty sure most of those people did not become builders after the wall was done; they served where they were needed and then got back to their regular life, whatever that looked like.

Sometimes I think we can also get stuck in "this is who this other person is" and not ask them for help or expect them to do anything other than what we think they can do or should do.

I think we should try harder to be like the people building the wall. Sometimes we can and should do things that we (or other people) did not think we could do.