Hope in the Pile of Bricks
When life crumbles around us and we are left to pick up the pieces, it is often hard to find any glimmer of hope in the pile of bricks. While living in coastal North Carolina, we witnessed the utter devastation caused by hurricanes. Houses destroyed. Businesses gone. Watching people pile what is left of their personal possessions at the curb to be hauled away, gut wrenching for me. Imagine what the feeling must be if it is you seeing all you own in a heap at the curb. Horrible. Just horrible.
The death of a loved one. A broken relationship. A job lost. Surveying the ruins of any loss, big or small, there is simply no easy and pain-free path to get to the other side. If truth be told, depending upon the extent of the loss, you or I might not even see any path forward, let alone an easy path. All hope for a brighter tomorrow as been lost behind the clouds. But, even when we think we have lost everything, we do still have one thing left – the very presence of God.
Let’s look at a story in the Old Testament. This particular story takes place approximately seventy years after Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. Nehemiah, a Jew who was a high official in the Persian court, wanted permission to rebuild the City’s walls. Ezra and Nehemiah were contemporaries. Ezra wrote about the rebuilding of the temple by Zerubbabel while Nehemiah wrote about rebuilding the city’s wall. At that time in history, cities in the Middle East were surrounded by a wall as protection for the inhabitants. Business was regularly conducted at the wall’s gates.
Nehemiah asked King Artaxerxes for permission to return to Jerusalem with the intent to rebuild its wall (Nehemiah 2:1-8). Prior to this, in Chapter 1, Nehemiah prayed, and God granted his request to be allowed to return to the City. As Nehemiah viewed the devastation, his heart must have been broken, seeing the city he loved in ruins. But even as Nehemiah viewed the piles of bricks (2:11-16), because he knew God was with him, he looked towards what could be and not simply at what was. Remember, Nehemiah had prayed for God to guide the rebuilding. God’s blessing means God’s presence.
As he assessed of what remained, Nehemiah likely saw beauty rising out of the ashes (2:17-18). Hope began to replace hopelessness. Delight overtook despair. Even as he was jeered and mocked by Arab men, Nehemiah knew rebuilding the wall would not be thwarted by those who opposed him. We find these words in Nehemiah 2:19-20: “But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, ‘What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?’ Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem.’”
Nehemiah and his team of wall rebuilders continued to face opposition, but God continued to be with them as they rebuilt Jerusalem’s wall, just as it had been prophesied by Daniel (Daniel 9:25). In a previous post, I wrote about some of that opposition. To read that post, click here.
Upon completion of the wall, we are told that all of Nehemiah’s enemies knew that the work had been accomplished with the help of God (6:15-16).
So, the next time ruin is all you see, ask God to increase your faith, helping you look past your pile of bricks toward the hope and joy of restoration!
If you are encouraged by this or any of my writings, you can subscribe to be notified by email when I post something new. To subscribe, click here. Once you put in your email address you will then get an email confirming that you wish to subscribe. Thank you.