The Seeing and the Weeping of it [part 1]

Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem.
And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned.
And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven.
Nehemiah 1:2-4

The gates and the walls of his beloved city were in ruins, and his fellow citizens were in harms way - now that's worth crying about!

You get the idea, walls and gates were very important to a city because of the protection and safe harbor they provided and represented. When the gates and walls are in ruins, it's very indicative of the overall condition of the city and it's citizenry.

If Toledo had walls and gates, what would be their condition?

You guessed it - "it's crying time."

Maybe it's time for us to step up and step back from our daily grind for a minute. What do we see? No, not just the obvious - what do we see? What is the condition of our people? Does it break your heart to see the hungry and the homeless? Does it mess you up to see thousands return to our city each year from incarceration? Do you weep over the victims of domestic violence? Are you crying?

First cry - then serve. That's Nehemiah's story. He allowed himself a moment to get messed up over the bad news of his home town, then he went to work to fix it. Perhaps in some cases we get too busy in the service and work of others, we forget to let something of ourselves break first.

When we follow Nehemiah's example and first weep over what we first see, then our action plans, and to-do lists, and economic development plans, and educational plans, and regional growth plans become better organized and better implemented, because we've seen the beginning from the end.

What do you think?

Dan Rogers