Fifty-Two Days in Nehemiah (Day 19)

Day 19

The former governors who were before me laid heavy burdens on the people and took from them for their daily ration forty shekels of silver. Even their servants lorded it over the people. But I did not do so, because of the fear of God.

Nehemiah 5:15

There are a number of things we fear in life. We fear getting sick. We fear losing a loved one. We fear falling upon hard times. We fear one of our children getting in trouble. The list could go on and on. Fear is a destructive force. Fear takes our peace, our joy, our happiness, and our zest for life. Fear is a very negative emotion; unless of course, that fear is a fear of God.

Nehemiah finds himself in an interesting situation. He has returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall that protects the city. At some point in this journey, he has assumed the role of governor. With this position there were a lot of rights and privileges that he could have enjoyed. Among these was the right to receive a daily food allowance. However, Nehemiah is trying to set a new tone as to what goes on in Jerusalem.

In spite of Nehemiah’s right to receive a food allowance, he refuses it. He says that he did not take it, “because of the fear of God.” He has seemingly asked himself one question, “Is this something God would have me do?” The answer he has come up with is a resounding, “no.” With that, Nehemiah refuses the food allowance and assumes not only the responsibility for feeding himself and his team, but as many as 150 dignitaries that often sit at his table. You can imagine how the people viewed this after being taken advantage of by previous leaders?

Let us, like Nehemiah, resolve to fear nothing but God and God alone. We cannot control our situations or what happens around us, so there is no reason to fret about them. However, we know that the fear of God is the one fear that is life giving instead of life taking.