Trust God, and Keep Your Sword Sharp

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
"the priests made repairs, each in front of his own house...one of the goldsmiths, made repairs as far as the house of the temple servants. Nehemiah 3:28,31(NIV).

When we moved into our Xiamen University Chinese professor's apartment in 1990, the place was a mess, and so were the grounds. First off, we were given a first floor apartment because the Chinese didn't want it. First floor apartments are so humid that water runs down the walls and puddles on the floors. And on occasion, our snakes (cobras, bamboo vipers--like the one I photographed on the right), slither in. Two of our neighbors have been bitten. And part of the reason we had so many snakes is that we live on the mountainside beside the woods, and the grounds outside our door were overgrown, mosquito-infested, and full of garbage that the folks upstairs threw out their windows (after a month of this, I bagged up some of their garbage, carried it back to them, and said, "Excuse me, did you lose this?" That was the last time).

I spent every evening for two months cleaning and fixing the rooms before we moved in, and then I cleaned up the grounds, and planted trees, flowers and grass. I even chiseled a fish pond out of the granite (yeah, I'm a chiseler), and built a 5m. waterfall. But imagine my surprise when the very neighbor who dumped garbage in our yard complained to the authorities that the grass I had planted would breed bugs! Fortunately, that neighbor complained about everything and everybody and was generally politely ignored. But a couple years later, after the garden was completed and had become a local attraction, two university officials showed up and said, "It is illegal to change university grounds. Only we can do that. You must pay a fine!" That was ironic, because so far no one but me had done anything to improve the grounds. But providentially, the very next day, a newspaper reporter interview me about our garden, and then interviewed the school officials, who backpedaled quickly and said, "Oh yes, he has done a great job! Very proud of him!"

Part of the problem back then was that even though Xiamen University is widely considered China's most beautiful university (nestled between the sea and the hills), we had zero money to spend beautifying the campus. But after we made our garden, people in other buildings also planted gardens and fixed up the grounds, and as the economy developed and the school's finances improved, they spent a small fortune transforming the entire campus into one large garden. But I like to think that the little garden right outside our door played a part, even as the Jews who rebuilt the bit of wall outside their doors were indispensable in rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah's rebuilding of Jerusalem's walls has several lessons"

1. Plan wisely. In Nehemiah 2:11,12, Nehemiah went to inspect the Walls secretly, by night. "I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem." He not only kept his plans secret from the enemy but from the Jews as well, including the workmen who would build the walls (2:!6). Nehemiah was not secretive out of fear, but wisdom. He needed to know the extent of what was needed, and he needed to minimize the inevitable opposition until he had momentum.

2. Expect opposition. Any change always invites opposition by those whose interests are threatened--or simply by those who are too lazy to do anything themselves, so ridicule those who lead change. Sanballat, governor of Samaria, did not want to see the Jews' condition improved, so Nehemiah inspected the walls secretly not from fear of Sanballat but to avoid too much opposition at the start. A lead ball is fairly easy to stop right after it starts rolling, but let it gain enough momentum and it becomes a juggernaut, crushing all in its path. Nehemiah wanted time to rally his forces, to build their confidence, to get some momentum before the enemy countered them.

"When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews...'Can they bring the stones back to life from these heaps of rubble--burned as they are?' Tobiah...said, 'What are they building--if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!'" Nehemiah 4:1-3

When I built my garden, I did it so gradually that it took two years for the powers that be to confront me, but by that time I had the support, rather than the opposition, of those around me.

3. Build your own wall first. A Chinese saying goes, "Sweep your own courtyard first." Nehemiah 3:28,29 (NIV) is a detailed account of how each person built the sections right in front of them: "Above the Horse Gate, the priests made repairs, each in front of his own house. Next to them, Zadok son of Immer made repairs opposite his house....Meshullam son of Berekiah made repairs opposite his living quarters.

4. Build according to your resources. The poorer people rebuilt only the walls in front of them; the wealthier people, such as merchants and goldsmiths, rebuilt much larger sections, according to their resources: "Next to him, Malkijah, one of the goldsmiths, made repairs as far as the house of the temple servants and the merchants, opposite the inspection Gate, and as far as the room above the corner and the Sheep Gate the goldsmiths and merchants made repairs." Nehemiah 3:30-32 (NIV).

5. Every person is indispensable. You may wish you were a stonemason instead of a guard, or a cook, or someone hauling materials, but each person is needed. There are no "supply" troops when doing good a good work; all are front line. Paul wrote in 1 Cor. 12:20-23, 'So there are many parts but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you,' or the head to the feet, 'I don't need you.' On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are in fact indispensable." (ISV)

Why would the weaker parts be indispensable? Perhaps because the diligent efforts of the poorer or less gifted people can inspire those blessed with skills or resources to greater effort. I had almost no money to build our little garden on campus, but I gave it lots of loving labor, chiseling through granite with a sledgehammer and pick, and hauling literally tons of rock and soil in baskets slung over my shoulders. People watched, and talked, and some laughed--but eventually they got involved, and people with more money (and knowledge) than me helped expand the garden beyond what I could have dreamed of doing on my own.

The CEO of BMW once said, "When my workers see a BMW on the highway, I want them to think, 'I made that car!'" Of course, no one person makes a BMW, but if one person fails to tighten a bolt, the BMW may not make it to the highway.

5. God is our strength--But Carry a Sharp Sword! Nehemiah encouraged the fearful Jews. He said in Neh. 4:14 "Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord." Although God gave Nehemiah the vision to rebuild the wall, and gave him guanxi (connections) with the King, He did not remove all resistance. In this life, we will always face resistance. If there's no resistance, it's probably because we're just going with the flow; we only feel resistance when swimming upstream, not down. So we should prepare for resistance wisely, and use common sense. As Jesus said, "the children of this world are wiser than the children of Light" (Luke 16:8).

Pulling Dog's Ears Nehemiah inspected the walls in secret not because he was afraid but because he was wise, and knew the truth of Proverbs 26:17, which says that to meddle in others quarrels is as foolish as grabbing a dog's ears. It is just as foolish to engage in a quarrel before you've marshalled your arguments.

Nehemiah =used his God-given brains; he also used his God-given brawn. Neh. 4:17,18 says that workers carried materials with one hand and a weapon with the other. They could only carry half as much, but they were always ready to fight. Even the stonemasons wore weapons as they worked. On top of this, Nehemiah had half the men working and half on guard. He was not fearful, but he also knew the enemy would attack if they felt the Jews were weak or afraid. As a Chinese pastor in Xiamen told me years ago, "Never show fear before the pack!"

We too will continually face opposition but we need to persevere, and to use our own God-given weapons, including wisdom and common sense, skills, resources, prayer, guanxi (as Nehemiah used his guanxi--"relationships" with the king). As David would have said had he lived in China, The Lord is my Guanxi, I shall not want!

6. Build the Kingdom, Brick by Brick
If you've seen the news today you'll know we're not in the Garden of Eden anymore, but that's okay. Jesus prayed "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." You and I are building that kingdom, here and now, one brick at a time--starting right in front of us.
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