Nehemiah 2

As we read our way through Nehemiah in the weeks ahead, we’ll likely skip around one-third of the book: those lists of names of people who pretty much don’t appear anywhere else in Scripture, and those genealogies that Scripture just can’t seem to get enough of but which bore us to tears.  Why would the Scripture-inspiring Spirit insist on including all those names in the Word of God?  

Because they belong to people.  And people matter—even people who only “appear” once in the Bible, whose names are a mouthful-plus, and whose only distinction sometimes seems to be that so-and-so was the father of so-and-so, or that so-and-so helped rebuild this small section of the Jerusalem wall twenty-five hundred years ago.  Scripture is far more populated with the once-named (even the unnamed) and the ordinary than with spiritual heroes.  Some folks had a way too easy time making it into the Word of God!

Which is, of course, the Gospel: we all of us have way too easy a time making it into the grace and love of God.  We have naught to offer in exchange for God’s salvation, we haven’t done and cannot do anything to cause or deserve God’s saving love in Christ. We simply show up and receive by faith what God offers by grace, and find our names written in the Book of Life.

God is committed to this thing we call “humanity.”  God doesn’t have a Plan B, if we humans don’t “work out according to plan.”  God puts it into the heart of Nehemiah to do something for Jerusalem.  He puts prayer into Nehemiah’s heart, wisdom, strategy, faith, courage, and whatever else God knows is needed in order for Nehemiah to be fully Nehemiah, the Nehemiah that God knows this man to be.

So also with you, with us.  God has put things in your heart, to be and to do.  God has laid people and situations upon our hearts, prompts longings and prayers, directs our steps, fashions and shapes our lives for God’s glory and purposes.  

We came across a wonderful sentence many years ago: “Your name is safe in God’s mouth.”  We’ve been called names, our names have been forgotten at times, perhaps used in anger or dishonor or mockery.  Most all of our names will never be famous or well-known outside our immediate circle of family and friends.

But our names—your name—is safe in God’s mouth.  You are known by name, called by name, addressed each day, each moment, by name.  Your name matters because you matter.

Try “paying it backward”—when you get to those parts in Nehemiah that are endless lists of names, don’t skip over them; read through them, even though you’ll likely mangle all the pronunciations!  May these names be safe in our mouths, even as we’re mispronouncing them.  While mangling, remember to say “Thank you.”