The work begins now. 

Nehemiah didn’t ignore what was broken. And he didn’t excuse it either. But you know what else he didn’t do? He didn’t sit back and wait for a miracle. We serve a powerful God who has shown His abilities again and again on our behalf. He’s more than capable of miracles. If He’s done them once, we can expect that He’ll do them again. And our job is to believe that He can. Our job is not to sit in a place of inaction and wait on God to clean everything up. 

Read Nehemiah’s prayer in chapter one. He apologizes to God for the disobedience of his people. He reminds God of his promises to the Jewish nation. And then he asks for God to bless him as he prepares to go before the King and do something about what he’s learned. He didn’t wait for God to tell him to do it. He knew what the truth was, and he was content to let it dictate his actions. He wasn’t going to wait for God to tell him to go when he knew it was what God wanted of him in the first place. So he moved quickly. There was a threat to physical and spiritual future of a group of people. Time was a luxury.

In chapter one, Nehemiah weeps, fasts, and then he prays. And after he prays, he says, “I was cupbearer to the king.” He wasn’t a priest. He wasn’t a spiritual leader of Jerusalem. He wasn’t a full-time pastor or a missions director. He wasn’t getting paid to care about people’s problems. He was nobody. 

Your responsibility has nothing to do with your profession. Just because you are not the pastor does not mean you aren’t necessary. The job to engage with a broken world belongs to all of us because we are the Church. We are ambassadors for the Son of the Living God. We represent the One who gave His life for humankind. We are the best chance this world has to see who Jesus is. That’s why lawyers serve in the nursery, why truck drivers lead seventh grade small groups, and why stay-at-home parents work at summer camps. Your profession doesn’t need to dictate your responsibility—especially not when the need is so great. 

Nehemiah had privileges that could be leveraged—and risked—to help people who were hurting. He had the king’s ear, but asking for help could’ve been seen as disrespectful. And he did it anyways. There are times when what is happening in the world requires you to leverage or risk whatever you have—status, resources, access, knowledge, connections, and finances. Why? People are worth it. You can’t expect to rebuild or restore without it costing you personally. Jesus modeled that. And it cost Him His life. But He did it because of the prize at the end.