Nehemiah 2:9-16

As long as God is calling His people to do what is right, there will always be opposition.
Genesis 3 says that it started in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve.
God said “Don’t eat, or you will die.”
The serpent came and said, “You can eat, you won’t die.”
Literally the only law that was laid down by God with consequence, and immediately the Devil was seeking to devastate mankind in it. Adam and Eve eventually fell for the lusts of their own hearts and drank in the deception of Satan. Their shame and guilt drizzled down through time onto all their descendants who were ensnared by the same Satan-peddled deception.
When Nehemiah arrived from his two-month journey, the scorn-squad began their trouble making. Scripture reveals what they were upset about: “It grieved them that there cam a man to seek the welfare of the children of Israel.” They despised the fact that Nehemiah wanted to help other people out. What a revelation of their wicked hearts!
Whether it is in the classroom where students are striving to do right and submit to the authority of the teacher that God has placed over them; or if it is at work, where co-workers labor and do so with a meek and humble respect for their boss; or at home, where one sibling is trying to obey and honor their parents; we can often find those who are trying to live in the design that God has ordained. But almost without fail, the classroom finds a scorner, the workplace finds the disgruntled, the home finds the disobedient. Why?
Because wherever there is God’s perfect design, there are those who are striving to undermine it. So how do you respond? Nehemiah responded by moving on past the opposition. He would not let the misdirected and disgruntled determine his actions. Rather with great purpose and in absolute submission and obedience to God, Nehemiah pressed on and did what was right.
We too should be like Nehemiah. When faced with opposition. When tempted by those who are disobedient to God’s design. When challenged by a co-worker or a classmate who wants us to go against what we know God has called us to, we should stand strong like Nehemiah and obey the God Who called us.

Food For Thought: Why were Sanballat and Tobiah upset? What desire of God does Micah 6:8 use to push against Sanballat and Tobiah’s wrong thinking?