Editor’s note: As Loma Linda University Health begins a massive construction project to build the new adult and children’s hospital towers, the chaplains invite members of the campus to pray and fast each Tuesday, asking for God’s guidance and wisdom as we continue to grow. Below is a devotional from a series in News of the Week based on the biblical book of Nehemiah, in which Nehemiah faced a massive building project of his own.
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“They were just trying to intimidate us, imagining that they could break our resolve and stop the work. So I prayed for strength to continue the work.” –Nehemiah 6:9
Most days we can handle the daily glitches — alarms that don’t go off, traffic congestion, irritating customers, coworkers or fellow students, those unexpected hits on our budgets. They are distracting, but not destructive. Then there are those moments in our lives when troubles fall like hailstones that batter us to the ground.
At those times, it feels like everyone and everything are working against you. It can cause you to feel isolated, abandoned, angry and overwhelmed. Stop for a moment, take a look at your life and identify which of the following best describes what you are experiencing — is it a pit or a tunnel?
I identified with “a pit.” In the not too distant past, I went through a season when everything (and I mean everything) was falling apart. I was broken. I was done. I went to a place where God and I could be alone. I poured out my brokenness to Him. “Father, I feel like I’m falling into a deep dark crater with jagged rocks at the bottom and I’m going to be crushed! Help me!” I sat in silence waiting. For what, I don’t know. Maybe some kind of earth shaking miracle or an angel to sweep me up in their arms. But nothing. Silence.
Then it happened. A thought popped in my head. Well … really, if I am to be honest, a voice said to me, “You’re not in a pit. You are in a tunnel.” Not exactly the miraculous intervention that I was hoping for! Yet, as I thought of what it meant, I realized those words were miraculous. Think about it. A tunnel is a hole, just like a pit. A tunnel is dark, just like a pit. But that is where the similarities end. Whereas a pit has an abrupt ending with no way out, a tunnel is a pathway that has a way out. A tunnel is the easiest way to pass through, under or around any obstacle in our journey.
After that realization sunk in, I then I heard “I’m walking through the tunnel with you. And I’m holding your hand.”
Our life journey will always encounter moments of hardships, disappointments and trials. It is the plan of the adversary of our hearts to use them to intimidate us, to break our resolve, to get us to let go of God’s hand — just like the enemies of Nehemiah sought to end his mission and work.
Once more we can find encouragement and solidarity with Nehemiah. During the 52 days of his building project he was tempted to see the challenges he faced as being down in a dangerous, solitary bottomless pit. Nehemiah used the challenges he encountered as an opportunity to refocus more intently on the Lord, and he received strength for the things he faced.
Whatever you are confronting today in your personal life, in your finances or in your work setting, just remember that you are not in a pit, you are in a tunnel. God is leading you through to exactly the place you need to be.
Terry Swenson, DMin
Campus chaplain
Loma Linda University