The Obstacles In Our Way

Nehemiah 4:1-9

It has been said that to eliminate opposition is to immediately eliminate its effectiveness. We we are close to the finish line, that is when the opposition is the most rigorous abs relentless. Think about a football team moments away from putting the ball over the opposition’s try line. The opposing team does everything in their power to resist the progress on the opponents. They want to keep back.

In the Bible account of Nehemiah, Nehemiah had received permission and favor from the Persian king to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. He how to construct a team to help him (all volunteers), And Nehemiah with gaining momentum and seeing progress.

It was then that the opposition knocked on Nehemiah’s wall. We read that Sanballet, Tobiah, and Geshem mocked and ridiculed because the progress with making people increasingly angry, Therefore, they plotted to fight against the nation of Israel to stir up distractions. They wanted to deter Nehemiah we’re making any more headway.

Brick by brick, the opposition and accusations came. All uninformed, and all unfounded. There and watched you intimidate Nehemiah and called him to step back. Their intent was to stall him out by slowing him down. They hoped to make it hard enough that he’d finally gave up.

For Nehemiah, it was the three individual mentioned before us, the opposition often comes by the names of disappointment, discouragement, and self-doubt. Despondency can grip our hearts. The Question arises, “can we actually build the ruins?”

Nehemiah‘s response is a blueprint for each of us when we are met with severe opposition. We are to pray and then make a plan. Verse 9 of Nehemiah 4, tell us is that Nehemiah didn’t come down from his wall, but he prayed, and then he hosted a team member as a guard protecting the workers day and night. God saw his enemies, and Nehemiah didn’t come down from what God had called him to rebuild.

This empowered Nehemiah to encourage his wary workers. Like a coach preparing a team to go out for the final game. Nehemiah speech got them ready. He declared that they should not be afraid of their opponents. Instead, they are to remember the Lord and release their fears into His hands (verse 14).

With a resolute, common bond, they cried out with confidence and conviction. “ God will fight for us! And 52-days later the wall was completed. An unprecedented building project had been pulled off, and the opposition defeated.

God will always restore what is broken around you. He’s fighting for you. He will defeat your enemies and empower you to resist the opposition that comes your way. Resistance is always the fear cyst on the borderline of a breakthrough.

All we have to do ask. God keeps His promises.

3 Keys To Spiritual Hunger

As a child, I was never taught about the Lord. I didn’t even know He existed. With everything I went through in life I thought I was on my own. While I knew my dad loved me, he was busy raising 5 kids and didn’t have much time for me.

I couldn’t understand understand why my mother was so mean to me, and my father didn’t have time for me. It lead to a very lonely life. I remember I would lay in my bed at night crying and wondering why I was left there to fend for myself.

After every bad event in my life, I knew I had to pick myself up and keep going, but I never knew why I, when all I felt was loneliness and pain.

I just kept going through the motions of every day life and just took things as they came. Early in my childhood I had learned to put up walls to keep me from being hurt. That’s how I had learned to cope. If the walls were high enough no one could get it.

It wasn’t until later a whole lot later that I began to break down those walls I had put up around me. And I have to tell you it was difficult. I was used to not feeling, I had no emotional response in me. I didn’t cry, I didn’t smile. I had no happiness. I was a non-emotional woman.

It wasn’t until I was in my late 40’s that I realized what a missable person I was not only to myself and to everyone around me. It wasn’t until I began seeking the Lord, I knew I couldn’t live the way I was living. I had to let people love me, and I had to learn to love.

I began to have a spiritual hunger for the Word of God, and what it could teach me. It was one of the most formative things I learned, the power of spiritual hunger. The trajectory for my life was formed by such hunger and resulting more fullness that I knew how to express.

When I speak of spiritual hunger and desire, I don’t mean being shamed into a bunch of religious should’s like I should have quiet time, I should go to church, I should read the Bible or I should share my faith. Believe me, I have done that. I an talking about having an undeniable hunger for more of God,

A desire for God that releases heaven’s fullness to overflow into your life.

The world is moving so far away from God these days. Many don’t want anything to do with Him. And you know what that’s free will. If people want to forget God and go about their lives that doesn’t exist with God, who am I to try and convince them different. But I tell you, you will reap what you sow. (Solomon 2:44

I am here for the people who want a life of peace and a love so fulfilling that it will rock your soul.

God honors and blesses spiritual hunger. I humbly offer these three keys to understanding spiritual hunger:

Hunger Is A Gift

I regularly thank God for the gift of hunger in my life. Spiritual hunger is not something that you can make up or take credit for. It is a gift not of our, but of God, as He draws us near. It all starts with Him. (John 6:44). The good news is that if you are interested in Him, He is looking for hearts that are open in order to stir up a hunger that will lead them to satisfaction of the soul.

When we sense a burning sensation in our hearts, a tugging to get away and be with Him to know Him more, to read the Bible, to ask questions about Him, to just be near people who know Him, it’s not a random emotion or a passing phrase. It is the drawing of the Holy Spirit.

Hunger Must Be Acted On Or If Will Fade

An identifiable desire for God is the work of the Holy Spirit drawing you closer to heaven banqueting table, to a deeper relationship with God (Solomon 2:4). It’s an Invitation to feast on the things that truly satisfy the heart. (Isaiah 55:2). He’s stirring a hunger and awareness of your need so that you will come and fill up your soul. We must, however respond to that invitation. If there is no action on our part in response to that hunger, it will fade away. It’s a pretty simple Spiritual law. If you feed the hunger, it will grow. If you ignore the hunger, it will fade.

Hunger Begets Hunger

The experts say that sleep begets sleep for babies. The more sleep they get, the more sleep they will continue to have. The same is true with spiritual hunger. The more you get, the more you will continue to have. The more you taste, the more you want (Psalm 34:8), it’s a cycle of spiritual life and growth.

The opposite is true as we,k. The less spiritually hungry we are, the less we will desire of God, the less we will be filled. That is a cycle not of spiritual growth, but of spiritual apathy.

The Pit

What do you do when you don’t know what to? The place where people give up is what I can the pit. When you’re in the pit, you see where you want to be, but no matter how hard you try, it seems you can’t get your footing . You begin to lose hope and doubt you’ll ever get out.

Your dreams are out of reach, and you feel like you’re in quick sand, seeking deeper with no way out. Our soul is full of trouble, we feel as though there is no hope.

In Psalm 88 David is saying, “I am counted among those who go down into the pit, I am like a man (woman) who has no help, set apart among the dead, whom you remember no more. You have aid me in the lowest pit in the darkest depths.

You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined and I can’t escape

Psalm 88:8

Sadly, most people give up in the pit. But if we don’t, we are the ones who see our dreams fulfilled.

None of have the perfect filtered life, like many portray on social media. Every person, even the ones who seem to have everything together, has at least one area in life that isn’t what they want it to be. It’s frustration. It’s hopeless. It’s where anxiety and fear have crept in. It’s where giving up not only seems reasonable, sometimes it feels like our only option.

The pit can be your health, your marriage, your children, your job. You know there’s more in you to express, but it seems some invisible ceiling is keeping you from reaching your potential or landing somewhere you want to be.

The pit is where your standing, and wondering if God really does have a plan and if so, why is He taking so long? Does He even see me where I’m at? It feels like you are one piece of of a 10- thousand piece puzzle and you don’t know where to begin.

But let me encourage you. When we are ready to give up in the pit, we have a God who is just getting started.

God doesn’t see as we see!

We see impossible, but He sees possibility. We see financial ruin, but He sees a path to blessing. We see the diagnosis, but He sees the way to healing. God sees the end from the beginning, when all we see is our past and our present. We see the pit, but God sees a way out, He sees an opportunity to show up and work through us and show us just how amazing He really is.

We need to see it through God’s perspective and use God’s strength to climb out of the pit, and reawaken our motivation when we’re temped to throw in the towel.

Where have you given up? Where are you considering giving up?

You are important, Please Don’t give up.