Don't Score for the Opposing Team

Hi Friends,

In case you missed it, here's the link for the article on me and Wonder Wood Ranch that came out this week. God to https://plannedgiving.com and click on the "cover story" link.

And here are some thoughts from my study of Nehemiah 5 and devoting ourselves to the work of God, especially during these tumultuous times . . .

I have one clear memory from my eighth grade basketball season. We were playing in a tournament in Lake Tahoe, an hour and a half from my hometown. The game was well underway, the score nearly even, with an important win hanging in the balance. The other team controlled a jump-ball when my teammate made a brilliant steal at half court and took off dribbling toward the basket. We all shouted and screamed. She executed a perfect layup and scored two points … for the opposing team. Somehow, that one basket seemed worse than all the others scored by our rivals. 

 

In Nehemiah, the Israelites were engaged in more than a simple basketball game; they were in a fight for their lives, for the restoration of the very identity of their people and homeland. They were in a battle for the city of God.

 

In previous chapters, Nehemiah outlined the opposition coming from outsiders such as Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the people of Ashdod. In chapter 5, he turns the lens inward to expose the opposition coming from within their own ranks. The nobles and officials were scoring for the opposing team! 

 

The very people who were supposed to be the team’s strongest players were instead undermining their teammates by charging interest on loans, a practice clearly forbidden by God in the Pentateuch (see Exodus 22, Leviticus 25, and Deuteronomy 23). 

 

Interest, or usury, could be charged to foreigners, but not to “a fellow Israelite.” Jews were always supposed to be one people, working together to honor God and be holy, to be set apart for God’s purposes. They were to be His team. God intended, and still intends, for his people to build each other up, to support each other, to make the team stronger as a whole as they work for the win, together. They were not to make their own position stronger by making their fellow Jews weaker. 

 

The Israelites of Nehemiah’s day couldn’t win that way. And we can’t either.  We too have a bigger goal, a bigger vision, than simply making ourselves richer, than securing our personal position in life.  Nehemiah was leading the team effort to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. Today, Jesus leads his church in the team effort of building the kingdom of God.  Nehemiah could not afford points scored for the opposing team. And neither can we.  We cannot use the plight of others, their struggles, their weaknesses, to our own advantage. 

 

We must be like Nehemiah, we must instead devote ourselves to the work (see v. 16), not taking advantage of even that which is due us.  God placed Nehemiah in leadership over the rebuilding of the wall because Nehemiah knew what it meant to strengthen the team instead of just himself. Perhaps God has placed me, and you, in our positions so that we too may build up our team and accomplish greater goals for the Kingdom of God. In everything we do, we need to make sure we are running toward the right basket.