(REFLECTIONS ON Nehemiah 6:1-14)

Nehemiah and the Jews endured great opposition in rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. However, this was nothing new for this post-exilic community. The rebuilding of the temple of the Lord also came with great opposition.

The challenging thing about this opposition was that it didn’t just come once, and then just disappear. However, we find that as hard and focused Nehemiah and the Jews were on rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, so were their enemies in stopping the work. It is as if the more force they put into the effort, the more force their enemies used to push back.

Does our life and walk in faith also sometimes feel like that? Perhaps we think to ourselves if we can pray more, serve more, give more to God, then the enemy will see our devotion and then give up.

However, what is our experience as a church? Don’t we often find that the more we desire to build up our relationship with God, and build up His church, that rather than seeing the opposition disappear behind us, we see the enemy exerting an equal amount of force right back at us?

What is it then that will get us over the hump, that will push us over the top? Should we be frightened by the opposition, take a step back, and ultimately give up? What did Nehemiah do?

9 They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.” But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”

Nehemiah prayed that the Lord would strengthen his hands. Nehemiah knew that with his own strength alone, he couldn’t overcome the power of the opposition. Yes, when we depend only on our own strength to build up our faith and build up the church, we may also feel like we aren’t making any progress and that the enemy is pushing even harder back at us.

However, we are reminded to pray, that it is the Lord that will strengthen our hands, and when it is the Lord’s strength that is pushing, the world will realize that we have a force that it does not have.

The world will not be impressed by our strength, because the world has its own strength as well. However, when it sees the strength of the Lord, it will realize that is a strength it does not have.

Pastor Michael Lu
Enduring Word Bible Commentary: Nehemiah 6