Codes for Christian Living

Start With Your Goal in Mind

And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Therefore the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart.” So I became dreadfully afraid, and said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire?”
—NEHEMIAH 2:1–3

Before Nehemiah ever left Persia, before he ever recruited his first coworker, before he ever placed the first stone in the wall of Jerusalem, he lived with a burden and started with his goal in mind. He knew where he was going. He knew how he was going to get there. And he knew what he was going to do.

Nehemiah’s boss, the king, noticed something was troubling him and asked, “Why is your face sad since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart” (Nehemiah 2:2). For four long months, Nehemiah had been living with this burden, ever since he first heard the exile’s report of the broken wall and burned gates of the city of Jerusalem. So his reply to the king’s question is a frank illustration of the fact that his goal was in his mind long before he ever left Persia for Jerusalem: “Why should my face not be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire?” (2:3).

Nehemiah had a passion for what God had planted in his heart: to rebuild Jerusalem! His heart was laid bare upon his face, and his king read him like a book. Here is a man who was living with his goal in mind and on his heart.

Content drawn from The Nehemiah Code: It's Never Too Late for a New Beginning.