April 30th

April 30th -- Nehemiah 5 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Nehemiah%205&version=NLT)

Nehemiah defends the oppressed

*Note, I'm not gonna' keep up the first person, because I find it bothersome to write in. I'll just summarize but not in first person, more as if I were a news reporter reporting his stories.

People begin to cry out in protest against their fellow Jews, explaining that they have big families and not enough food, or that they have mortgaged everything just to get any food at all. Some were even selling their children into slavery for money to live, because that was all they had left to offer for money. Nehemiah is outraged by this, and tells the nobles/officials what they are doing by charging interest on borrowed money. He calls a public meeting to deal with the issue. At the meeting Nehemiah says that even as they do all they can to redeem people who have been sold to foreigners, they are selling them right back into slavery, and asks how often, then, they must be redeemed, to which they have no answer. He told them what they did was not right, and that they must stop charging interest, and also help them restore what they lost as well as pay back the interest they received from them. They said they would do so, and the priests were brought to make them swear to it. Nehemiah said that God may take their property if they did not do as they had said, and they did do as promised. Nehemiah was governor for twelve years - the whole reign of Artaxerxes - and during all that time not him or his officials took from their official food allowance. The rulers before had taken advantage of the people, but Nehemiah feared God so he did not. He would not buy land and worked to rebuild the wall with his servants. He didn't ask for anything, though he gave much away to others. He wouldn't claim the governor's allowance because of the burden the people bore. He asked that he be remembered and blessed by God for what he did.

Nehemiah could have had all he wanted because he was in power, but he didn't take it. Why? He realized that "with great power comes great responsibility". Oh, no, sorry, wait, that was Peter Parker. Haha. No, but actually, Nehemiah picked up on that way sooner. He recognized that just because he had power didn't mean he had to use much less abuse it. The government/those in power before him? Well, they abused it to the max. Their people begged for mercy because they were barely surviving, but the ruling authority paid no heed. Nehemiah, on the other hand, wouldn't even take what was rightfully his because he knew if he did not, it could lighten the load for his people.
We are sometimes placed in positions of authority. Maybe we babysit, or we're in charge of a team at work, or we're the boss at work, or maybe we're just the leader of a group project at school. Any sort of authority counts. So how do we use it? Do we use it wisely, for the betterment of those we have authority over in that area, of do we abuse it and exploit it for our own purposes? That doesn't even necessarily taking things from those we're put in charge of, but it could be something so simple as giving one group member a bit of extra work just so you have a bit less to do because your show's on that night. We need to work to be like Nehemiah. It's easy - VERY easy - to abuse power. We see it happening all the time all over the world. So many problems could be solved if power/authority weren't abused. There are more ways that power is abused than just those that perhaps come to mind. Power is abused in the cases of rape. Power is abused in the cases of household abuse. Power is abused in the cases of child labour. Power is abused when groups are discriminated against in a club by a manager because they don't like their gender/culture/ethnicity/religion. Power is constantly being abused everywhere. So many people desire it, yet so many abuse it when they have it/get it. If we could all just be a little more like Nehemiah, and use it for others not our self, the world would be heading to be a better place.

That's all for tonight! God bless! Shalom!