Broken Walls, Broken Lives

Broken Walls, Broken Lives  

 

Nehemiah 1:1-3  

 

The people were in trouble and were feeling a great sense of disgrace and reproach. The walls of the city were broken down.  

 

The gates had been burned with fire and were no longer usable.  

 

If we take Jerusalem as a symbol of our own lives, there are many of us who fit this description.  

 

You look back on your life, and you see there are places where the walls have been broken down.  

 

There is no longer any ability left to resist destructive attacks.  

You have fallen victim to sinful habits that you now find difficult to break.  

 

Have you have gone along with the ways of the world?   

 

Have you fallen into practices that the Bible says are wrong? Now, you have difficulty stopping them. Perhaps your drifted unknowingly.  

 

You did not realize you were forming a habit, but now you no longer can stop it.  

 

Your defenses are gone. The walls of your city are broken down, and perhaps your gates are also burned. 

 

Gates are ways in and out. They are the way by which other people get to know you as you really are. 

 

Perhaps your gates have been destroyed by wrong habits. 

 

Perhaps you were abused as a child. This phenomenon seems to be surfacing frequently in our day. The shame and the scarring of it have kept you a withdrawal syndrome from active life. 

 

 Your gates are burned, and nobody has access to you. Perhaps you were a victim of divorce or abuse or of some bitter experience, and you feel betrayed or sabotaged.  

 

You want to run and hide. No one can reach you. You have been so badly burned, you are now touchy and inaccessible.  

 

There are parts of your life you cannot talk about. You do not want anyone to know.  

 

You have a sense of great personal distress and are feeling reproach and disgrace. You have been scarred emotionally. 

 

No one may know about it. To others you appear to be a success. They think you are doing fine, but inwardly you know you are not.  

 

As you examine the walls and the gates of your life, you find much of it in ruins. How do you handle that? 

 

The men and women of the past have been through these same difficulties, and they have told us how to handle them.  

 

The book of Nehemiah is one of the most helpful pictures we have of how to recover from broken lives.  

 

The steps that Nehemiah took covers provides specific steps, orderly and very effective. Taken in order they will lead to a full recovery of usefulness. 

 

Are we ready and willing to allow God to expose our brokenness and lead us in paths of healing and usefulness? 

 

Let us Pray

Thank You, Father, that You reveal my own brokenness, not in order to condemn me, but to rebuild my life. I give to You all that is in ruins and ask that You rebuild me into the person You want me to be. In Jesus Name. Amen.