Team Camp, Friendships and a guy named Nehemiah

So, it's Tuesday and I just got home from Team Camp with 20 girls who will be trying out for the Silverton High School volleyball team. It was a great camp, hosted by Rosie Honl, 2006 & 2007 Oregon Colleyball Coach of the Year. The girls really enjoy it and they play non-stop for four days. By day four however, they are irritable, tired and ready to go home. Upon returning, I have some comments I would like to make.

I learned several things this week as I watched my girls play and live together. The first thing. Teenagers are addicted to cell phones. They seem to have to have them at all times and they don't even use them to really talk but just to text back and forth, sometimes just to the seat in front of them.

I learned that friendships are precious and very fragile. I was amazed at how close some kids have been in the past and surprised to find that they hadn't spoken in over two months. I was more amazed to find that they were angry mainly because of gossip spread through other friends and hearsay that caused severe hurt. My suggestion to anyone is that they really listen to what people have to say and be careful to know over react. The most important thing however is that you talk about it and listen, no matter how mad/upset/frustrated it makes you. The only way to get through it is to find the root.

After being with the girls I was thinking about a story in the Bible that I enjoy. It's found in Nehemiah Chapter 6: 1-16 ish.

Background:
Nehemiah gets a letter from a relative that tells him about the state of his hometown (Jerusalem). It stays in his mind and he can't get it out. He starts praying about the city, calling out to God to take care of it and feels sick about it's status. As cupbearer to the King, he's expected to be joyful in the King's presence but can't even mask the problem when he's with him. The King asks him what is wrong and Nehemiah tells him. Moved by his feelings for his city, the King allows him to make a trip to Jerusalem to repair the walls. Not only does he allow him to leave, he gives him a letter that gives him the funds, supplies and authority to take care of the city. He arrives in the city, checks out the problems in the dark, not telling anyone what he is up to and then returns to take it on. He organizes the men, gets them going and then when they are regularly attacked. He continues to build the wall with one man guarding and one man working at each station. It's an amazing feat. As they are nearing completion. The enemies start attacking Nehemiah's character and that's where the story begins.

The Story:
In chapter 6:1-16 Nehemiah is almost done with his job and he is attacked at all corners. The four attacks are simple yet normal in our daily life. First he is tempted to be distracted and kept out of focus (1-3). They continuously ask him to come do other things. Second (5-7) his motives are questioned as they spread rumors thorough an open letter. Nehemiah's response ... (v8) Nothing what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head. Basically, your crazy, that's not true and he went back to work. Attack number three, they tried to weaken his resolve (9). What does he do? He prays: God make these weak hands strong. And fourthly, they tried to compromise his integrity (10-14). They tell him to run to the temple and hide which would discredit him because only priests and criminals could take sanctuary there. He would have been totally discredited if he would had hidden in the temple but his response ... I'm not running away, I've got a job to do. Then in verse 15 we find the result. Nehemiah completed the wall in 52 days, after praying over it for months and hearing the stories of it since childhood. He finished a job that had been waiting over 140 years to be completed in record time with the help of a king and a bunch of ragmuffins at time.

The Point:
Sometimes we get distracted from the jobs that God has before us. We can't allow that to happen. We must stay the course and do the job that God has for us. Sometimes our motives are questioned by people that we're close with. We can't allow our vision to be clouted by the critics. After all, nothing brings out a critic like a vision so we must counter criticism with the truth. Sometimes we get tired and our resolve is weakened. The truth of the matter is, along the way we'll be tempted to give up. But we can't, God has a purpose for us and we can't allow ourselves to get thrown off the path. We must seek God to give us strength. And finally, sometimes we have our integrity compromised. The enemy lives to trip us up in life. It gives him delight to see us struggle. But we have God on our side and need to set boundaries that will help us be successful. If you know you stuggle with something, tell someone else. Don't go places where you know you'll have to deal with a struggle. If you can keep away from these four little distractions, then you'll be able to build that magnificent wall in record time and the work of God will be done.