I Am Doing a Great Work: Nehemiah’s Lesson for Busy Women

 So I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” Nehemiah 6:3, NIV

When You Don’t Have a Vision

During my time living in Texas, my husband and I hosted a bi-monthly Bible study at our house.

We eventually landed on a very old sermon series by Andy Stanley about discerning the will of God. I’m talking cheesy skits before the preacher preached old. So we obviously fast-­forwarded through those to the meat of the message. The fourth week of the series was my Jethro moment.

Stanley said, “The clearer the vision, the fewer the options, the easier the decision.” He used the picture atop a puzzle box to describe how we need to have a vision for our lives and use that vision to guide our decisions.

I realized something: I had no vision for my life. I had checked off the major boxes. I had received an education, worked in my dream field; I got married and had kids. But now what? Without direction, I started saying yes to every request and every opportunity that came my way.

An Empowered No

Vanessa Patrick, author of The Power of Saying No, coined the term the empowered no. An empowered no stems from our identity and gives voice to our “values, priorities, preferences, and beliefs.” Thankfully, I knew myself well enough to start living out of empowered nos and empowered yeses. I think you know yourself well enough to do so as well. You don’t have to wait to have it all figured out to create and live out of a vision. You just need to know who you are and have an idea of who you would like to become.

I was still busy. But I became busy with things that fit into my vision and let go of the things that did not. That vision included my marriage being at the top of my priority list, a home where our kids felt close to us and each other, a career as an author and speaker, one where we would continue to fight for an inclusive world for our son with a disability and one where the love of God would hopefully shape all our nos and all our yeses.

There is a line from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah that hangs on my wall. Nehemiah left his prestigious position as a cupbearer for the Persian King Artaxerxes to lead a group of Jews back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city walls. In doing so, Nehemiah led a physical revival to the city and also a spiritual one. In chapter 6, Nehemiah’s enemies try to convince him to come down from building the wall to have a meeting. Nehemiah sent messengers with this reply, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.”

We Are Doing a Great Work

When I look at these words, I am reminded that I am to keep building and living out of the vision I believe I have co-created with God and my family. To do so, I can only carry the pieces that are meant for my life. It is a great work, and I can only keep doing this great work if I avoid picking up pieces that are not mine to carry.

If the requests we receive to volunteer or work late or the pressure we feel to enroll our kids in one more activity or have our houses look Instagram-­worthy at all times do not fit our values, priorities, beliefs, and that vision we have done our best to co-create with God, then let the words of Nehemiah ring in our ears: We are doing a great work and cannot come down.

We cannot come down for things we feel pressured to do but that do not fit into our vision.

We cannot come down for unreasonable expectations we put on ourselves.

We cannot come down for a life that is not intended for us to live.

Because when we do, we miss out on the life that makes us fully alive.

In His Word

Read Psalm 131. What are you intentionally choosing to not concern yourself with today?

In Your Life

What is your five- to ten-year vision? How might filtering your commitments through this vision help you to be busy with worthy things and less busy with unworthy things?

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