I Cannot Come Down

Andy Stanley is one of my favorite contemporary preachers. He has a little different philosophy on preaching than I, but I love to listen to his sermons. He has an ability to communicate a point about as well as anyone else I know. And I am able to remember points from his sermons for years after I hear him preach. There aren't many pastors I can say that about.

This past week, he preached on personal vision, and talked about Nehemiah 6, where Sanballat is wearing Nehemiah out trying to get him to leave construction on the wall and go to the plain of Ono so Sanballat can kill Nehemiah. But Nehemiah stuck to what God had called him to do.

You get the picture of Nehemiah standing at the top of a ladder working on the wall, when one of his messengers comes to say "Hey - Sanballat wants some time with you." But Nehemiah's reply is pretty neat: "I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down." Sanballat asked Nehemiah to reconsider several times, and Nehemiah responded the same every time.

Andy's challenge was to discern what God has called you to do, and then reply to everything else, "I am doing a great work, and I cannot come down."

So much of my day is spent doing urgent things that really aren't important. And even more of my time is wasted doing things that aren't urgent or important. And sometimes, when great opportunities come along for me to speak somewhere, or be somewhere that would take me away from what I believe God has called me to do, I need to do a better job of remembering that I am doing a great work and cannot come down.