We are all products of our environments. And environment is not limited to physical location alone; much more than that, it includes our mental (the places we get the information we feed our mind), spiritual (the place(s) we go to for spiritual nourishment), career (factors affecting our discipline), business (industry and location of our commercial activities), as well as emotional (relationships) factors. All of these constitute our environment.
We ought to learn from his example and note that no matter how successful we become, or how secure we feel, there can never be any substitute for God. It is to the extent that we are aligned to Him that we are hedged by Him which therefore makes us invulnerable.
If you too must make a name for yourself and become great in life, you have to exercise the discipline of making the right choices and then starting what you have set to do without delay. And when you start, don’t stop or look back. You just keep going until you break through to greatness.
Our meditation today shall be on what to do to become great in life. Before this passage, all the preceding verses are mere genealogy, stating who gave birth to whom and in what order. But, in verse 10, there is a break from the routine of “A” giving birth to “B”;
When we praise God, He swings into action on our behalf. The devil will do everything in its power to keep you from praising God because it knows the power of praise. The more you praise, the more you are raised.
Clarity is a virtue, and vagueness is a vice. It pays to be clear about what you want at any point in time. In the passage above, when asked about what he wanted, Nehemiah was unambiguous in his response to the king. He did not bore his listeners with elaborate background details before stating what he wanted, by so doing wasting their time. On the contrary, he was unequivocal in his statement of intent. He wanted to go back to his native land to rebuild the ruins.
