The Nehemiah Process

It is amazing how vivid the Scriptures seem to become when I am going through trials … or at least when I am faced with unfamiliar surroundings. When struggling to find my bearings in a school I’ve never taught in before, with kids I’ve never seen before, in a country I’ve never lived in before, and immersed in a language I don’t know, I can’t rest upon past experience or on routine responses to answer my problems. Many reactions I have seem to come out of nowhere and are so ugly that I am forced to the feet of Jesus to look at the compass of the Word … so to speak.

This is the way it is supposed to work anyway. Nehemiah recorded this process in chapter 9 in the prayer that the Levites offered when they sought the Lord during a time of trouble. A remnant of Jews had come to a city in a land where most of them had never lived … to Jerusalem in the land of their fathers. Nehemiah came to supervise the building of the wall at Jerusalem … something he had never done since his “real” job was a cupbearer to the king of the Persian Empire. Now he was trying to find his bearings as he dealt with an unfamiliar job in an unfamiliar country. Without trying to be presumptuous I believe that Nehemiah faced the same things I am facing … at least in principle. The recorded words of that public prayer seemed much more relevant when I read it this year. It clearly outlined the responses I should have in my heart everyday as I try to make sense of my surroundings here in the Dominican Republic.

1. Trust in the absolute goodness and sovereignty of God’s character

Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever: and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee ….. But thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness … Nehemiah 9:5,6,17


2. Recognize and confess my tendency to rebel against God and turn from His Word when things don’t go my way.

Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations. Nehemiah 9:26


3. Turn to the Word during times of trouble which God allows in order to purify us.

Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them; and in the time of their trouble; when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven …. And testified against them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law … Nehemiah 9:29

4. Trust that God is just in all that He allows in our lives.

… for thou art a gracious and merciful God. Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us … … Howbeit, thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly. Nehemiah 9:31, 32, 33

This fourfold process begins and ends with our eyes on God, and I believe it is occurring in our lives no matter where we are. It is called the process of sanctification which God has promised to accomplish in the lives of all believers. However, I believe that sometimes this process takes place more quickly than at other times. Allow me to illustrate.

In the biology class that I’ve been teaching to a group of excitable ninth graders we recently finished chapter two which dealt with chemical reactions in organisms. (By the way, since I have never taught this class, it is on my “time of trouble” list.) According to the book, the rate of a chemical reaction can be speeded up by temperature. So, according to this illustration, if I want the sanctification process to occur faster, simply put the vessel over a fire. At least it feels like this is what is happening to me right now … more troubles mean more recognition of how black my heart is, mean more time in the Word begging for deliverance, mean more gazing upon the face and character of God and praising Him for His goodness, grace, and gift of Christ as He reveals His life in me. How precious the following passage has become since I read it two weeks ago:

I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.
Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.
Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.
The LORD preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.
Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.
For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.
I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living. Psalms 116:1-9

With the indulgence of my readers I will list a few of these “times of trouble” that have been raising the temperature during the last two weeks. Because of a teacher in-service day this past week on Friday I was able to catch up a bit more on my work so I dedicated those couple of free hours that afternoon to this blog. I can’t’ believe it has been this long since I’ve written.

Trouble #1 – Teaching eight classes with six different subjects has been a tremendous pressure on me, I have to admit. Four of these six subjects I’ve never taught before and, as a math person by training, two of those four I am not “qualified” to teach (health and biology). By faith I know that this situation is not an accident and God is just. He allowed it for a purpose. Based on some of the ungodly ways that I’ve reacted, I have needed this and from an eternal perspective it has been good for me.

However, as of this week, the health class has been given to another teacher. When the administration realized that I was the only teacher in the school with this kind of work load, they arranged for a little relief. Starting next week I will have one less class to teach and consequently an extra hour of preparation time twice a week. When I heard the news I felt like weeping for joy.

Trouble #2 – The new classroom environment is a huge adjustment. The contrast between my closed, undistracted room in the small Idaho town where I was teaching, and my open, noisy room here in the Dominican Republic is almost humorous. One day at a particularly poignant part of my lecture I realized that the kids couldn’t hear me. The outside noise had literally drowned me out, and those that know me realize that this isn’t easy to do. I had to stop, and during that moment of hesitation I simply smiled, shrugged my shoulders, and for a few seconds listened to the screams of the elementary school children as they played on the small grassy area during recess outside my room, and let the roar of the helicopter and a motorcycle subside as they passed by simultaneously.

This is a noisy country. I will have to adjust to the thunderous drum of the occasional tropical storm, the music of Louis Miguel played at rock-concert level from a car while it was being washed at twilight across the street from where I live, the screams of a spoiled four-year-old boy every day and every night, the incessant barking of the neighbor’s dog every day and every night, the crowing of several roosters every morning, the blaring of the neighbor’s TV every night, and the unmistakable, disturbing sounds of a consistently unhappy and angry family. Because of the climate, the construction of the apartments gives you the feeling of living in a cement tent. The louvered windows make the house always “open” so there is no way to shut out the noise and dust. And because of the cement construction and bars on all doors and windows, the clanging of closing metal bars and echo of voices make it sound like we are in a federal penitentiary, or in a marble hall of justice in Washington DC.

The one exception to all this pandemonium is during the early hours of the morning when an uncharacteristic sense of peace seems to settle on the whole neighborhood. Since this is a culture that does everything late … eat late, party late, arrive late … it means that most people in the city are horizontal and quiet at 5:30 AM. So I am finding some relief from the hectic hubbub of the day by arising early. I’m even learning to sleep through the noise in the evening when I go to bed early.

Trouble #3 – Carol had to apply for her residency. This was an unexpected shock to us both financially and circumstantially. Chock this up to plain ole’ miscommunication from another language! When I went down to the capital with the rest of the teachers to apply for my residency I was asked if my wife wanted to come also. When I asked if she was required to become a resident they said, “No, it is optional since she is not a teacher.” The school paid for my residency papers but since Carol is not hired by the school it would cost $700 out of our own money. So we decided not to have her go. The consequences, I understood, was that she could not get a driver’s license and would have to pay an extra entrance fee of $10 should she leave the country ... which I was willing to bear.

Then a couple of weeks later I found out that this was all true … except she would be illegal! Evidently “everyone does it” so it was looked upon as a viable option. Ethically speaking I knew it was no option for us so we made arrangements for her to go through the application procedure. Unfortunately this required Carol to ride in a taxi to the bus station, travel to the capital, be escorted to the various places by a lawyer who knew no English, then return to Santiago on the bus … all by herself. This was a huge concern which we prayed about and approached with a fair amount of fear and trepidation.

We saw God’s hand of protection and mercy in a special way. Not only was the trip without incident, but the Lord put an older Dominican pastor next to her on the way down on the bus. Believe it or not, with the help of a dictionary and some patience they both shared conversation and encouragement in the Word … all in Spanish! Carol said that it wore them both out The pastor ended up napping for the last half hour of the trip.

Trouble #4 – In the land of “Maintenance ... what's that?” we have inherited an apartment where many things are broken. I don’t mean broken so badly that we can’t live here, but just sort of broken down … if you know what I mean. The big things were taken care of by the school that has its name on the lease. (We simply pay the rent and the utilities each month.) When the water began leaking out of the overhead ceiling lights or we couldn’t turn off the kitchen faucet, or the laundry room electrical outlet didn’t work so we couldn’t wash our clothes, the school maintenance man come over and repaired those right away.

Since then, however, I have made a list of 24 “sort of broken” things that simply need to be maintained and it drives me nuts when I don’t have time to take care of them … doors that creak whenever you open them, electrical sockets hanging out of the walls, screens that let in mosquitoes, faucets that leak, door buzzers that don’t buzz, toilet paper holders that don’t hold, gas stove spark plugs that don’t spark … anybody who is a homeowner probably feels my pain.

In addition to this we are still trying to put our house together. We are like a newly married couple trying to find cooking pans, night stands, lamps, dishes, silverware, study table, and mattress protector pads. It is pretty bare around here. The only wall decorations we have right now are a map of Santiago and Idaho, a picture of our home church given to us before we left, and a Thomas Kinkaid calendar. Coupled with the constant time pressure and the difficulty of finding and getting to any place to buy anything, it has become a very slow process.

God has granted some relief in this area just within the last week. One of the new employees who was hired with me, the elementary principal, has a husband who has worked for people who own yachts to make sure that the yacht arrives at its destination. He is handy at not only sailing the craft, but repairing anything that can break on a million dollar boat. He has recently come to join his wife with a lot of time on his hands. Being an older man and “semi-retired” he asked if he could help on my “sort-of-broken” list of items. He has already fixed several and is not finished yet. I praise God for this provision.

We also met two older single missionary ladies who have been here for something like 26 years. Since they have a car, they volunteered to take us downtown to look for the bigger items. They also introduced us to their neighbor, a Dominican carpenter, who needs a leg operation soon. He is desirous to get as many jobs as he can so he has the money for the operation. He has done work for these ladies over the years and has a reputation of being a respectable craftsman. So we are asking him to build a table for our phone (which is on the floor right now), a bookcase for all the books that I have to have in order for Carol and I to do our preparation for school here at home, a stand for the five-gallon drinking water dispenser, and some shelving for the pantry. He is beginning these projects this coming week.

Writing this blog entry has been good for me. Simply by tracing back through the last two weeks I’ve been able to isolate four specific “times of trouble” which have raised the temperature in my sanctification process. Many times in the last six weeks these four problems have brought me back “again unto thy law”. But in each case I also have seen that God is “a gracious and merciful God” who has not let “all the trouble seem little before thee”. He has provided for some needs and given relief and answered prayer.

Also, in each of these situations, I have had to face attitudes of impatience, ingratitude, anger, tight-fistedness, and grumpiness. And each time I did, it seems, I was reviewing the verses again that I’m trying to memorize recently:

This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Galatians 5:16-18

Then I realize that I need to repent and turn back to the Word and trust in God’s character. This is the way it is supposed to work … this process of sanctification. Even in these four recent and simple tests I have seen God’s faithfulness as I have experienced the Nehemiah process in a small way.