God can transform rubble into a wall of strength

I am a project guy. I have notebooks of stuff clipped out of magazines to reference and perhaps build. I look at things, architecture, trim work and furniture trying to dissect it to get a mental picture of how it was made so that one day I can attempt to reproduce it. I receive a great feeling not from taking projects but finishing them.

Over the years I've become a healthier project guy. Instead of lots of projects going on at once with none of them near finished, I've learned to limit myself to one thing at a time. Finishing seems to erase the frustration of things gone wrong. Finishing covers the memory of bruised knuckles. Finishing fuels a motivation to take on another project.

There are a lot of project guys in the Bible. Nehemiah was one of them. A vision was birthed in his heart to rebuild the walls of his home city that lay in ruins for over a century. God working through this ordinary man and a crew of normal people did an amazing job of rebuilding an entire city in 52 days. No miracles. No supernatural intervention. Just one man who invested this vision in others who determined that no matter what this work would be finished.

There is no greater feeling than to put the last tool away and be able to say "finished." The dust is cleaned up. The drop cloths are put away and the paint is cleaned from your hands. Finished.

Finished means completed and perfected in all details. "Finished" is whole, it is to be at peace, it is to be sound. The journey of the people of Jerusalem in Nehemiah's day was from greater than a century of trouble and shame through 52 days to bring peace, wholeness. Finish.

There is hope to be whole. There is hope to see finish. These men and women stuck to the wall when facing extreme pressure to give up. The vision of God was too great to quit. The glory of God is too valuable to quit. The wholeness of God is too valuable to give up.

You and I are projects. God desires to be at work in and through your life to bring wholeness. He desires to take rubble and transform it into a wall of strength. He wants to work toward wholeness in your life, finished.

Rob Hurtgen is a husband, father, minister and writer. Read more from him at www.robhurtgen.wordpress.com.