Sticks and Stones

          As believers we are continually bombarded by voices, and what those voices tell us and what we choose to do with what we hear can be of great importance in our lives.  We often hear people telling us that our faith is hopeless and that we should give up our trust in God.  These voices say that religion and faith are an opiate for the masses, that there is no proof for God and that we shouldn’t waste time and energy on something that really is, after all, just a fairytale.  A non-believing culture wants to make it clear that we are foolish if we stake our lives on belief in Jesus.

          What we experience as believers today is nothing new.  Nehemiah undertook a massive rebuilding project, attempting to rebuild the walls of his city, Jerusalem.  Nehemiah didn’t just want a nice place for he and his people to call home, he wanted a place where they could worship the one true God, Yahweh.  And Nehemiah was mocked ruthlessly by an unbelieving culture that wanted so badly to see him fail.

          What that culture didn’t understand was that Nehemiah’s faith was placed in one who was completely able to do the seemingly impossible.  Where they saw a task that had no chance of succeeding, God saw an opportunity to make His name great.  He loved what Nehemiah wanted to do, and He gave him the means to achieve what no one thought could ever happen.

          When we hear voices telling us that our faith is foolish, we can rest in the assurance that, like Nehemiah, we have a God who wants to make His name great by working in the midst of our apparently hopeless circumstances.  He has always worked in this manner.  On the cross, on the darkest day in history, He worked to show that when it looked like death and Satan had triumphed, He had always been in control.  And that is no fairytale.  It is the good news of the gospel.