Celebrating God‘s Successes Through Our Messes - Nehemiah 10-13

 Nehemiah 12:27-30 (ESV)

Dedication of the Wall

And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites in all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgivings and with singing, with cymbals, harps, and lyres. And the sons of the singers gathered together from the district surrounding Jerusalem and from the villages of the Netophathites; also from Beth-gilgal and from the region of Geba and Azmaveth, for the singers had built for themselves villages around Jerusalem. And the priests and the Levites purified themselves, and they purified the people and the gates and the wall.

Nehemiah returned to the city of Jerusalem to rebuild the city walls and build back the worship in the Temple.    Finally, after mountains of opposition and problems, we read the above celebration.   Throughout the end of the book we are given the names and duties of those who did the work.  But, we are also told that they celebrated and gave thanks to God for the completion of the work.   These last chapters of Nehemiah give us the spirit of the people as they finished the task.   The celebration of thanks was as important as each stone and brick on the wall.  Nehemiah knew the importance of praising God and leading the people into praise.   The walls were not as good as the previous city walls, but, none-the-less they had completed the tasks and set about the celebration.   In our fast paced society we don’t set much intentional time aside to give thanks and to celebrate the success God gave us.  There always seems to be one more thing we have to get done.   We have to stop and choose to celebrate and give thanks to God.  Yes, we have holidays that are designated for such practices.  We even have a day of the week that we gather to do such celebration.    But, each day of the week should have a time where we simply stand back and say thanks to God for His amazing grace in our lives.  He, alone, is our success.  We might not have designated “thanks-givers” as Nehemiah seemed to have created.  But, we ought to take a moment each day to simply be grateful to God for what He gave us grace and mercy to build.   Celebration of praise to God is not to be neglected it.  It is to be scheduled.   When we have a mess to clean up, God can give us success to celebrate.