If you have ever been discouraged in doing God's work then the story in Nehemiah 6 is for you (and me). Nehemiah has an impossible task. He has been commissioned by God to rebuild a city that so destroyed it is hardly recognizable. He is to rebuild it with very little material and with a remnant of people who busy abusing one another. On top of that stress he is asked to do this work with an enemy who constantly tries to distract him and discourage him. His "arch enemy" stops by to mock, to threaten, to warn, to distract. What is Nehemiah's response:
Nehemiah 6:9
For all of them were trying to frighten us, thinking, “ They will become discouraged with the work and it will not be done.” But now, O God, strengthen my hands.
When we are in the midst of difficulty doing the work of Christ we can rely on our strength or we can rely on God's strength. God can and will do some great work in us as we trust in Him and have faith in His strength, not our own. Many believers do the work of Christ in their own strength and fail. Those who do work in Christ's strength find a source of power otherwise unknown. Paul, in the midst of his toughest times came to realize that when he was weak that is when God came to strengthen him and that is when he found he was strong. Note what Paul says:
2 Corinthians 12:10
Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
We can only find real strength when we find that we are really weak. God strengthens those who lean on Him, not those who lean on themselves.
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