Nehemiah 13
by Susanne Moore
Rebuilding a life that has been ravished by living in a fallen world always leads back to making sure you have a firm foundation. My foundation was a rocky one, filled with deceit and misdirection, confusion and pain. I didn’t know any better of course, and life’s choices made out of that kind of brokenness are not load bearing. Meaning they cannot hold up to the weight laid upon it.
When I found myself back in the same mental house, the same gutter, the same rubble again, I knew something had to change. Again, the insanity of doing the same things over and over and over again expecting a different result is maddening. Especially when it was sixteen years since the last love bombing, mind manipulating, abusive nut cake that had shaken my base like a hurricane.
I had never circled back to the actual beginning to examine the rubble, tear it out and fill the cracks with truth. My childhood base was faulty, and cracked with big gaping holes that were filled with lies and misunderstanding of love, God and truth.
When you rebuild a house that has been destroyed by fire, or water, or even a tornado, the base of the house needs strength and fortitude. Good bones we call it in the insurance world. We need good bones, and when we choose to make changes to avoid further damage, we must make sure all of the reformation is safely rebuilt on Jesus only. If we add to it our preferences, our leanings, our human failure it is not strong.
I Corinthians 3:10 “According to the grace of God, which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one of us take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
That is powerful. Jesus is the reformer of our soul. He refines, restores, rebuilds us from the inside out. He is our strong foundation.
How many times do we have to learn this before we start bouncing ALL our decisions off off HIM? Ladies this!!! Before we make any decisions we need to make sure that God’s word agrees, we have covered the decision in prayer, we have waited for God’s clarity and we can clearly see it is a decision that will glorify God in mind, body, soul.
I will be praying for you in the REBUILDING process. Remember it is a guideline we can revisit over and over. Grace is the best gift of all. We are standing in the refiner’s fire; mourning, fasting, praying, asking, examining, growing, defending, protecting, remembering, remaining, recounting, agreeing, dedicating, and reforming a renewed life.
It is the end of our study on Nehemiah, we have unpacked it well and now we take all of this and begin to balance it all with Jesus as our scale. I look forward to digging into BALANCE for the rest of 2024.
Dear Lord thank you for this amazing deep dive into your word and the book of Nehemiah. We know you are the Master Builder and you have given us a blueprint to seek you and seek new. Be with us as we apply your guidance to our life and begin to balance our life around you.
Susanne Moore 