My Wall

This last week in our Community Group, we talked about how in the book of Nehemiah (which we’ve been studying at church), it only took 52 days to build the wall of Jerusalem, but another 12 years to reinstate true worship of God.  Jeff asked the question:  What wall has God built in your life? And what is the longer project that He’s at work at? Meaning, what is the “thing” you sense Him wanting to do, that perhaps He’s begun, through some concrete step, but that He’s continuing to work at in your life.  People had some great things to share. I knew that mine was prayer.  God’s very clearly done some concrete work in my life lately in the area of prayer–mostly just getting me up and out of bed in the morning and then starting this Monday morning prayer group. But that was a definitely start.  Along with that, strangely enough, I very clearly sensed He wanted me to pray about… my wall.

Yes, a wall.  The wall for Nehemiah was a physical project, by faith, that rallied the people of Jerusalem and marked the first step toward revival and reinstating true worship of God.  For us, the wall is a 4-foot stone retaining wall that we need to dig out and build in our backyard, so that a large portion of our yard space is usable.  Yeah, I know it seems really ridiculous that I’m spiritualizing our landscape, but I’m telling you this is the real thing.

In natural Kari-fashion, I first faced this wall dilemma with the classic, “Forget it. We don’t need a wall, it’s too expensive.”  But the more we looked at our backyard, and the fact that half of it was unusable because of this dirt slope, the more it seemed like a smart thing to do. Plus Jeff said it was a must.  So I priced out retaining wall stone and about had a heart-attack.  Apparently it was either Dutch went to college OR we built a retaining wall.  Grr.

Then, so clearly I sensed that God wanted me to pray for Him to provide a wall.  That He would build the wall.  He obviously provided for Nehemiah, giving him 12 years paid-leave from his job, supplies for the work, workers, provision, you name it.  But I mean, that was for God’s city, this was just for our backyard.  It seemed a little arrogant to think that God should build us a wall.  Then again, it’s more arrogant to think we can build it without Him…

So I prayed.  A lot. Even in our Community Group Tuesday night, when we went around and shared what we sensed God wanting us to pray about, I shared this. Even though it sounded ridiculous while everyone else was praying for unsaved loved ones and orphaned children (I prayed for them too!).  But I still felt like I was supposed to share this and pray this.

So yesterday, the day after praying about this in Community Group, as I mentioned before, I finally sat down and did our taxes.  To my utter astonishment, the way the cards fell for us (clergy tax laws, having a 2nd child, tuition, buying a house), we got a totally unexpected, and totally huge (in my estimation) tax refund.  Let’s just say plenty to build a retaining wall.  It seemed too good to be true so I called our business pastor, talked through all the numbers with him to check myself, and sure enough–there you have it.  As Nehemiah’s jaw must have dropped to have a pagan king supply him with all the finances and materials he needed to build the wall of Jerusalem, my jaw seriously dropped at the Federal Government giving us back a fistful of money so we can build our retaining wall.  God, I’m listening.  You are in charge.

So yes, it’s just a wall.  It isn’t surrounding God’s Holy City Jerusalem, but you better believe every time I look at that wall I will think of my God, who uses every situation as a means of showing us His infinite power. And, I pray that that wall is the beginning of something far more significant–of an ever-increasing life of repentance, praise and worship to my God–just as it was in Nehemiah’s day.   And, like Nehemiah–the wall still has to be built!  The provision is there, but we still have a lot of work to do! Hopefully it will take less than 52 days, but it might be close.  He had a lot of workers to help him… Anyone have some free Saturdays?

I love this adventure of a life with God.  Thanks for reading about My Wall.