Good morning… February has been a busy month for us, but good. Early in the month I took some time out to reflect on life and adjust my outlook on life by focusing again on God’s purpose for me–finding joy in living for Him. It was good. Last month I also began applying to schools, and also started a part time job fundraising for state pro-life groups.
It’s hard to believe it’s March already! Today my father-in-law is preaching a message at church based on the Old Testament book of Nehemiah, chapter 9. I’m looking forward to it, because its powerful themes that are so relevant today. At first glance Nehemiah may seem obscure to some people nowadays–but it’s a comment on what happens to a society which starts with many godly values, but over time “loses the plot.”
Ancient Israel had, as the Biblical history tells us, grown from a no-account tribe to a micro-nation in Egypt, making up a large minority which was eventually subjugated by the pharaohs to a slave caste. By His choice and power, God delivered them from slavery and led them through the desert to forge them into a unique people, bound by His covenant of love with them. After finally inheriting the land of Canaan and spending 800 years or so developing a stable society based on the commands of God, ancient Israel was eaten up from within–suffering from spiritual cancer. They had paid lip service to their God, while worshipping pagan idols of fertility and superstition and violence. They did, over and over, what was right in their own eyes. And although the Lord was “slow to anger and abounding in love” (Exodus 34:6) they did not listen to the warnings of his prophets, and rejected their God. They were not atheists–they just chose to view God as an accessory, while their own agenda and desires took center stage. God did not tolerate this arrangement, and provoked other powerful nations against Israel, so that the Jews were carried off into exile and their city lay in ruins.
Yet, as Nehemiah’s prayer relates in chapter 9, even then God was merciful. After a generation had passed away, He made the hearts of the kings of Babylon & Persia generous toward the Israelites, who allowed them to return to their own land. Now Nehemiah’s generation has the task of not only rebuilding their society, but also starting on the right spiritual foundation. They didn’t want to wind up again in the cycle of enjoying God’s favor and then using God for their own ends. They didn’t want to repeat history.
Surely we can understand that! We can look back at tragic events in history and recognize the adage that “those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.”
As we live in the 21st century, hopefully we also see that how we live depends on what foundation we are building on. That is true for both individuals and governments, from families to foreign policy.
The relevance of Nehemiah 9 to me is my desire to build my life on a solid foundation–and there is no foundation more steady than the Word of God and the mercy of God in the gospel. The great irony of ancient Israel was that they enjoyed God’s providence & protection yet did not serve God whole-heartedly or turn from their evil ways. The traits of devotion to God and repentance from sin were absent from their lives.
As I look over my family, back to my family tree and distant ancestors, I can see this same pattern happening. For instance, on my mother’s side there were Puritans who immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630’s because they had been persecuted in England for wanting to live a reformed life according to the Bible. They were not perfect, but they did try to become a shining city on a hill, a model society. They were trying to be authentic disciples of Jesus. Yet in only a few generations this was abandoned for either religious self-righteousness on one hand or a materialistic view of life that put knowing God in the back seat.
Later on, there was a Great Awakening in colonial America (1740’s) and this was paralleled by the growth of Methodism in both England and America, which influenced much of early . My family was impacted by this in the early 1800’s when my great-great-grandfather and grandmother were converted to a deep, personal relationship of faith in Christ. It was a redicovery of the gospel, and a refusal to modify it for one’s own ends. Pure and raw, just as it said in the Bible. and although this legacy was not embraced by my grandfather, my great-aunt Alice did embrace it. In the 1920’s, in a Methodist teacher-training college in South Dakota, she knelt down and confessed her need for the Saviour. Unfortunately my grandfather did not see it, and did not pass on a lasting foundation for either my mother or myself to build on. I don’t hold it against him. But like Nehemiah and his generation, I want to have the long view, and try to raise my children to know God in a fulfilling way, offering their lives to Him in gratitude for His grace. I’d like them to break the cycle, and know the peace that comes from the covenant God who calls every generation to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him.
And maybe, just maybe, they won’t repeat history.
–Brian
