Codes for Christian Living

Make an Honest Evaluation

The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. It came to pass in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the citadel, that Hanani one of my brethren came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, “The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.”
—Nehemiah 1:3

Nehemiah opened his memoirs with the news of a report he received from distant Jerusalem. Hearing of someone who had recently returned from a visit, Nehemiah inquired about the status of the Jewish people and the condition of the Holy City itself. The report was not what he had hoped to hear: “The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire” (Nehemiah 1:3).
If Nehemiah was to get started right in his task of rebuilding, his first step was to make an honest evaluation of the condition of Jerusalem. Although a remnant of the Jews had returned to their homeland and the temple was in place, there was only a semblance of normalcy. The wall of the city was still broken down from the destruction years earlier when the Babylonians had devastated the city. The gates were still unhinged, burned with fire. Those who had returned had dishonored God with their lifestyles and neglect of the temple, and they found themselves mired in deep “distress.”

It was time to face the facts. First, the broken wall was in need of being rebuilt to provide safety and security for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And, second, as long as the gates were burned, the enemy would have easy access to the city.

Many of us falter and fail in the rebuilding process at this very point—we don’t take the time to make a thorough and careful enough evaluation of our circumstances and situation. For some, it is hard to get to the place of admitting our need, of admitting that some of our own walls are broken and some of our own gates are burned. I know men and women who have met premature death because they would not face the warning signs of pain in their bodies. We all know those who waited too long to go to a physician to get an honest evaluation of their situation. The same can often be said regarding relationships, or, for that matter, anything else that needs to be rebuilt. If we are ever going to rebuild, we must first get started right. And we will never get started right until we make our own honest evaluation of the situation.

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