Hand me the drill, please

My tool box is not extensive.  And over the years I have at least had the limited wisdom and resources to gather in a few more specimens to adorn my garage walls: an electric sander, an electric drill, an electric saw; good grief!  Makes me appreciate our forebears prior to Ben Franklin’s little kite and key experiment.  Some things I have procured only AFTER trying to accomplish the job using,…something else.

Failing to use the correct tool for the job can be not only inconvenient, but downright dangerous.  A Phillips screwdriver does a lot better on a Phillips-head screw than, say, a table knife.  Ask me how I know.  I could give other personal examples, but I try to keep these blog posts short.  Suffice it to say, the right tool for the right job is significantly more efficient than the alternative, especially if the alternative involves a hospital bill.  (Thankfully, I haven’t gotten that far.)

Flashback to a man named Nehemiah and the returned Jewish exiles who were rebuilding the wall around their beloved Jerusalem.  Now there was a BIG job in need of the right equipment, and they didn’t even have power tools.  What they did have, however, was opposition, and plenty of it.  It goes like this:     

“But when Sanballat and Tobiah…heard that the work was going ahead and that the gaps in the wall of Jerusalem were being repaired, they were furious. They all made plans to come and fight against Jerusalem and throw us into confusion.”

Our enemy, Satan, has plans for us also, he has a pretty big tool box of his own, AND just like in Nehemiah’s experience, our enemy fears our progress.  Are you embarking on a new project entrusted to you by God?  (Child-rearing, perhaps??)  Are you rebuilding something broken? (Relationships?  Emotional health?) Please be advised that, like the former exiles (emphasis on “former”), one of the enemy’s big wrenches to throw into our progress is Confusion.  And, learning a lesson from Nehemiah’s leadership, we need to use the correct spiritual tools to counter that:

“But we prayed to our God and guarded the city day and night to protect ourselves.”

Due diligence in the “guarding” part is important, but the first hammer to pull out against Confusion (or anything, for that matter), is Prayer.  We tend to poo-poo the spiritual influence of our circumstances when, in reality (I love that word) it is the first influence that needs remodeling.

And it takes more than a mere table knife. 

Nehemiah 4:7-9  Tyndale House Publishers Inc (2008-06-01). The One Year Bible NLT (One Year Bible: Nlt Book 2) (Kindle Locations 26045-26047). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.