Heavenly Wisdom

Sorry its been so long since I posted.

Neh 6:12-13 ESV And I understood and saw that God had not sent him, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. (13) For this purpose he was hired, that I should be afraid and act in this way and sin, and so they could give me a bad name in order to taunt me.

Here's the situation: Nehemiah and the Jews were rebuilding the wall and their chief opponent was Sanballat. They had hired a false prophet so as to ruin the reputation of Nehemiah. If they could get him agitated he might do something stupid and provide grounds to remove him from the project. I've been in this situation.

When I was a chaplain I had a supervisor that was an equal opportunity bigot. He didn't like anyone. It got so bad they began doing an investigation as a precursor to a court-martial. Then he came into my office and told me that he was retiring and going back to school. Would I write a letter of recommendation for him? I told him I would think about. And I prayed. It "dawned" on me (!) that if I did so then my testimony in the investigation would be suspect and throw everything into doubt. I eventually refused to write the letter and he was very, very angry.

This is why, as Paul Miller paraphrases Jesus, "We must be warm, but wary." The schemes of Satan are not often blatant and above ground. Pray for wisdom from the Father of lights so that you might walk blameless in a world infected deeply by dark sin.