God intends for your life to be lived with Vision – a vision for a future that speaks to what He
wants you to accomplish. Vision is the driver for your life plan, which we help you to ascertain in
our STEPS classes here in Integrity Church. In July, we begin our summer series called CLEAR:
A Chronicle of Nehemiah.’ We’re going to learn a great deal about this humble servant of the
Lord, and how the vision God gave him drove him to accomplish something really amazing!
Back to this idea of vision for a moment – God typically gives a vision over time, as the
individual, organization, church, etc. goes through ups and downs, successes and mistakes, and
learns lessons along the way. A common misconception about vision is that God gives it with a
bolt of lightning. Whoosh! One second it’s not there, and the next second it is. But that’s not how
it usually works. God often communicates vision through stages—stages not always
characterized by triumph and success, but often by failure and heartache.
Around 445 B.C., God gave Nehemiah a vision concerning what could, and should be in
Jerusalem. The city lay in near ruins due to the Babylonian siege nearly 150 years earlier, along
with the subsequent neglect since that time. God revealed to Nehemiah the vision for re-building
the walls of the city, but it’s as if God gave him the vision in stages. Over the next couple of
weeks, let’s look at those stages.


Stage 1: Vision is Birthed From an Obstacle

Nehemiah was in Babylon, in the service of the Persian king Artaxerxes, as his cupbearer, or
‘taste-tester.’ If anyone tried to poison the king, Nehemiah would be the one to ‘take the hit’ for
the king. This speaks to the character of Nehemiah, as the cupbearer would have to be among the
most trusted of the king’s servants.


Nehemiah begins his story in chapter 1 by telling us that his own brother, Hananiah, and a group
of men had just returned from a long road trip to Judah. When Nehemiah asked how things were
in Jerusalem, the reply was not all that good:


They said to me, “Things are not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah.
They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down, and the gates
have been burned.” Nehemiah. 1:3 (NLT)


The news had a profound effect on Nehemiah. Being a trusted servant of the king, he knew of the
government’s willingness to allow Jews to return to their homeland, a place that Nehemiah
probably had not even seen. God had obviously given Nehemiah a real passion for the re-settling
of Jerusalem. But Nehemiah saw the broken down nature of the city for what it was—an
OBSTACLE. It was an obstacle to the fulfillment of something that was important to Nehemiah’s
people.
A vision often starts with an obstacle. God often uses an obstacle to cause someone to begin
thinking in a particular direction.

So – what OBSTACLE (notice the ‘all CAPS’, because OBSTACLES are often BIG…) are you
seeing in your life right now? Is it something that seems insurmountable? Discouraging? For
Nehemiah, the OBSTACLE was clear – a broken down city that had been in ruin for over a
century and a half. Although he had never seen the city, he knew how important the city was to
his people, the Israelites. That OBSTACLE in your life may be the beginning of something BIG
that is all about what God wants in, and from, your life!