Doug Van Pelt

Build me up, buttercup...

[Hundred Year Storm at recent HM party]

There is a funny story in Nehemiah 6. He's rebuilding the wall in Jerusalem and the nearby leaders keep sending him messages: "Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono." Nehemiah gives him an answer that's similar to one I've had to deliver to many people asking me to schedule meetings and whatnot for the upcoming GMA week in Nashville: "I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?" They repeated the message four times, and the fifth time Sanballat sent his aide with an unsealed letter, which alleges that Nehemiah is building the wall in order to revolt. Nehemiah answers, "Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head." That's funny.

Many things were trying to distract him from completing the task, but his secret weapon was prayer. He kept lifting up his project to the Lord. This is great. The wall was completed in fifty-two days, which is about the same length as one production schedule of an issue of HM Magazine. The film company for The Day After Tomorrow sent me a keychain with a clock built in. One of its features is you can set a time and date and count down to it. I have been using this since as a deadline countdown. Right now it's telling me that there's 6 days, 23 hours, 35 minutes and 23 seconds left until deadline.

I better pray.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at March 25, 2005 12:28 PM