erosion...

"Every farmer knows the hunger of the wilderness. That hunger which no modern farm machinery, no improved agricultural methods can quite destroy. No matter how well-prepared the soil, how well-kept the fences, how carefully painted the buildings, let the owner neglect for awhile his prized and valued acres and they will revert again to the wilds and be swallowed by the jungle or the wasteland. The bias of nature is toward the wilderness never toward the fruitful field." - A.W. Tozer Erosion is the deadliest of all evils. Your heart starts out strong, and then slowly, because of circumstances, you start to erode. You don't mean to, you don't want to, but it happens...and it happens to all of us. Selfishness, lack of discipline, procrastination, immorality, no time for God, compromise, rebellion...the list could go on and on. We neglect our heart...we let the world come in and chaos ensues. It is a wonder to me why so many of us (myself included) first ignore the signs, then continue on with our lives, even when we know we need to take inventory, slow down, and fix the crumbled walls that are in heaps around our hearts. All you have to do is read the story of David, Saul, Solomon, Moses, the list goes on and on, and you will see that it isn't anything new under the sun. But what sepearates most of us from them is that we get stuck...we repent, then we stop. We often times forget (or we simply ignore) that we must rebuild, persevere and never give up! Nehemiah had to have been of the greatest leaders of all time (there are not many). He was cupbearer, turned builder, turned governor...and most of his time was spent on his knees, recognizing that he had a need and there was a problem. Day in and day out, he met God. He wasn't so preoccupied with his life and his wants, that he didn't recognize the need of his people, the need of himself, and the need for God to intervene. He wept for the ruins, he wept for him and his people, he had compassion. But his story didn't stop there...he got up and he turned his groanings into action. The story of Nehemiah is one that should mirror ours - of motivation, encouragement, discouragement, promotion, intimidation, conviction, devotion, success! He humbled himself, got on his knees, and started to rebuild. He acted upon the warning signs and it changed the course of his life and the people. It wasn't easy, it wasn't pain free, it wasn't fast, but eventually God brought them to a place of abundance. "We went through fire and through water, Yet You brought us out into a place of abundance." Psalm 66:12