Dear Reader

“Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach.”* (Nehemiah 2:17)

The Lord wants to build the walls of salvation in our lives to take away the reproach of the marks of sin and ungodly traits in our lives. God has designed a way for us to keep growing more like Him, and keep getting the dross (ungodly things) purged out of our lives.

At my work two opportunities recently came to get some more dross out of my life. First, a little background. For years I was a team leader of a technical team in a government agency, and had a reputation for quality work. I quit that position to work part-time for a while, then quit entirely to attempt to develop a business at home. It did not succeed, but the Lord preserved a part-time place for me back at my old office, now in a humbler role. For a number of reasons (time spent away from that profession, normal mental decline with aging, having to learn the ropes in new areas, etc.), I have made considerably more mistakes than I used to, much to my embarrassment, although they still are happy to have me work there. The first situation I want to mention occurred like this:

Someone was mentioning my name in the context of something that wasn’t organized very efficiently, and I went to investigate. In a process involving several steps where the work was divided among several people, one person was wondering aloud why the step I worked on didn’t accomplish more of the process than it did—she felt the person doing the next step was having to do some of what I should be doing. In my heart I knew reasons to justify myself, but the Lord spoke to my heart to ignore that aspect and just show a willingness to get it “fixed.” I did just that, and within an hour or so I had made and tested the necessary changes to everyone’s satisfaction.

The second situation occurred when my team leader and I met with a customer from another office in the government agency I work in. This customer felt there was a flaw in a process as well as a mistake in its design. I at first defended the notion that there wasn’t a flaw (in my mind, there seemed good evidence against it), but the Lord began to deal with me about it and I got quiet. We agreed to changes in the design and the customer left. Then my team leader speculated a cause for the flaw the customer thought existed, which I told him I doubted, but would examine it to see. He was right—I had created that flaw in the process, and I admitted it to him, feeling much humbled in spirit. The Lord showed me I needed to call the customer about it. It was rather difficult and embarrassing for me to make that call, but the Lord helped me—I thanked the customer for being persistent in insisting that there was a flaw, and that there was one indeed, and that I was fixing it, and I apologized for the error. She responded graciously, and I felt the blessing of the Lord in my heart.

The Lord has been dealing with me in these types of situations about the ungodly sense of ego and superiority that built into my life before I was all His. Doing good-quality work is something to endeavor to do because we love God and it is right, not so we can be proud because people think highly of us. This concern for reputation is a reproach that the Lord is working to get out of my life, and I want it out, too!

My prayer is that this issue will encourage you, together with us, in getting those walls of salvation built stronger and higher!

In Christian love,
The Editor