Feed One Another

I can be an extremely impatient person. I’m the kind of person that watches the pot even though I know it’s not going to boil. But being impatient does comes in handy for my job, where I manage the production of engineering proposals. I have to gather lots of technical information from others, which makes me dependent on them to do my job. Facing timetables and deadlines, I have to ride herd on those engineers to make sure that the proposals go out right and on time. I can’t afford to just hope that things will go well. I have to make sure that the plan works out. This happens in two stages. The first stage is planning on how the proposal will get done. The second step is me making sure that the proposal gets done by being a pest – making phone calls, sending e-mails, sitting on people’s desks – well, not the sitting on people’s desks part, but I have to do all of the other stuff.

When Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem, he faced lots of opposition. So he took a two-step approach to their problem. Both steps were important and so was the sequence. First, he prayed. He didn’t act rashly or impatiently. Then, he posted a guard. Nehemiah and his followers had faith that God would protect them, but even though they acted with faith by praying, they didn’t pretend that the threat didn’t exist. They realized that they had a responsibility to take reasonable and appropriate action.

When trouble comes, and life gets hard, there are two things we need to do, and we have to do them in the right order. We pray so that God’s hand is moved. Then, we act in a reasonable and appropriate manner. Sometimes, the action to take is waiting. Waiting is a conscious action. I try to remind myself of this principle all the time. Man, that pot still isn’t boiling.