nehemiah

I still feel like I’m on a plateau, writing-wise. I am feeling a little sorry for myself, and I keep thinking of Nehemya in the process.

But it struck me, in the midst of my mild self-pity, that Nehemya isn’t the only example of dogged persistence in the Bible. Instead, you find many, many, many people who stuck it out despite long odds and stretches of despair.

I was trying to think, “Who would have been the earliest?” but I think as soon as you hit any form of history you have the story of persistence in motion. Even in the bits of Bereshis that are pre-modern history (i.e., before Avraham) you have that same record of “I will persist.”

I think Avraham, though, is the start of persistence, someone standing in faith against everything around him. Ur was polytheistic; Avraham was a monotheist, and held his own as a champion of the One. Even though he failed (presenting Sarah as his sister, for example, which I don’t quite think I understand) he kept his faith – in stunning and frightening ways. (I don’t think I would have had the faith to sacrifice Yitzchak.)

Then you have Yaakov, waiting fourteen years to marry Rachael. Then he ran and reconciled with his brother Esau, whom he cheated.

Then Yosef, in Egypt, forced into slavery by his brothers and then rescuing his family from starvation.

Then Moshe. Then Y’shua bin Nun. Then the judges of the tribal league… even Yiptach, who sacrificed his daughter.

David, too, persisted. Shmuel.

In the end, I had a harder time figuring out the protagonists in the Bible who did not show that their lives were their worship of the One than finding examples of persistence. In other words, everyone showed that persistence was one of the core values – not just faith, but faith in this and every other moment.

In a way, that’s encouraging – it means that their faith isn’t being measured in the moment. Having faith when the chips are down, or up, isn’t the point, although it’s a point.

The key is realizing that faith is a picture, painted over a thousand days – from its birth in your soul to your last day on Earth. By trying, by living, you’re having faith, even if you may not feel like it.

Nehemya, for example… he probably had his down days. He probably looked around at the wall around Yerushalaim being slowly built, at the enemies around him who didn’t want the wall built, and had his moments of despair and ennui.

Then he might have remembered why he was there, and remembered the progress shown despite the obstacles, and decided that it didn’t matter how he felt – he could see the wall from his dreams, and see a world in which Yerushalaim was rebuilt and repopulated.

And he kept going – showing the faith and persistence he’s known for.

Writing today has been really difficult. I have a lot of new priorities for the year, because it’s important to me to be more effective in how I live my life, but this week has been just absolutely a massive challenge – I almost wrote “terrible” – for those priorities.

Sometimes it’s the circumstances; we have a problem with electrical load somewhere in our house, so one of our fuses keeps breaking. If it were just the fuse, it’d be no big deal; I can replace a fuse, I think. But to find a load problem is a different beast altogether, and that’s a time consuming and expensive process to fix.

I’ve also not been feeling very well; I’m congested and tired.

As a result, most of the things I’ve been doing regularly have been either a mighty struggle or a loss altogether.

The thing is: it’s my load to bear. I chose the struggle. I chose to try to be more effective and dedicated to the things I wanted to prioritize, so it’s mine to follow through.

At this point, I’m reminded of Nehemiah – building the wall around Jerusalem, with people around him trying to malign his character and disrupt his work. He kept on going, and going, like the Energizer bunny – what a terrible analogy, I’m sorry, Nehemiah! – but the result was that the wall was built. He actually finished.

The analogy breaks down a little, because for me, it’s not necessarily that I’m trying to accomplish a single task (although the 500 words challenge might qualify, I suppose). I’m not going to be able to push through for right now, and succeed – for me, success is that in a year, I’m still doing the things that I’m trying to do right now. (Again, the 500 word challenge doesn’t quite qualify – in thirty days, I will be able to say that I managed to write 500 words on – hopefully – all thirty of them, and if I can’t, well, I will be able to quantify my success rate.)

I’m just very tired. Today’s writing is boring to read, boring to write, boring to think about – I’ve been putting it off for quite some time, because I knew it would be difficult. I guess that’s part of why the challenge is structured the way it is: when the chips are down, when the going is tough, can you keep on writing?

And there’s the analogy to Nehemiah again. When people around you keep hammering at you, when things aren’t going your way, who are you? What happens to your effort? Can you dig deeply enough to keep going, to persist, without just typing the same word 500 times so you can take a shortcut to “success?”

I don’t know… but I’m going to try. I’m not willing to give up, especially not at this point in the challenge. I will find a way, if there is a way to be found within me. Five hundred words? You are nothing, words! I will remain myself, and keep on the best I can.

More Persistence

Sometimes you have to just keep going