Thursday, December 06, 2007

Nehemiah 2: 1-8 The Good Hand of God

And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me. (Neh 2:8c)

The KingdomBuilders Leaders got together again last night. We looked at Neh 2:1-8 and marveled at the exchange between Nehemiah and King Artaxerxes. Let me recap:

  1. Nehemiah is sad in the kings presence and didn’t get his head chopped off
  2. The king just gave Nehemiah probably a year to a year and a half leave of absence from his job, don’t forget now the king has to find someone else…good help is hard to find
  3. The king also just changed a law he had in place for a long time and if we turn to Daniel 6:8 we see that the laws of the Medes and the Persians cannot be revoked, that’s why the satraps were so hot to get King Darius to sign the law that would trap Daniel into praying to God and then being thrown into the lion's den
  4. King Artexerxes, not a believer by any stretch of the imagination, just agreed not only to give Nehemiah safe passage to Jerusalem with a letter and later we’ll see an army escort, BUT he is going to give Nehemiah all the lumber he needs from his own royal lumber yard
All this and what does Nehemiah say? "Yes, I am the most awesome servant that God has ever had!" or "Man I am just that good of a negotiator!"

No he says, "The king granted everything I asked for because God sovereignly intervened." No other reason...nobody else gets the glory. I love this Nehemiah guy.

Have you ever watched as someone took all the credit for a great idea or a task being completed? Never once acknowledging the fact that they got the idea from someone else or could never have accomplished the task without the help of their team. In the corporate world, it happens all the time.

This gives me a glimpse of what God must feel like, when in his sovereignty he provides for his creation and they take the credit...never acknowledging that God's hand was actually in it.

I was telling someone the other day about my career...how I went from security guard at a major corporation to Systems Analyst then went to another company and went to Project Manager and eventually IT Manager...blah blah blah. You know what I realized? I hadn't once mentioned God or the Lord Jesus. I told the story like I pulled myself up from my bootstraps...so lame!

This passage from Nehemiah came to me and I was so convicted. I told the person, "You know this story is not true. To tell you the truth the only reason I'm standing before you with any semblance of a cool career path is because God's good hand was upon me each and every step of the way."

Lord Jesus, I want to be more like Nehemiah. When major or minor things happen in my life I want to acknowledge you in my speech and in my heart. Thank you that your good hand is ever upon me. Amen.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

that's a good word, i like it.

al.