What to do when you experience opposition to your work for God

By Dean Collins

‬‬Sometime this year someone will have something negative to say to you as you are working on your renewal and restoration plan. By now I assume you realize that we who give our allegiance to Jesus are commissioned to be a part of his royal priesthood. Peter explained in 1 Peter 2 that we are living stones being built as a spiritual house. We make daily offerings to God as we join God and each other in the restoration and renewal project that King Jesus established. But not everyone will like what we try or how we do it.

Nehemiah’s experience and ours will likely be the same as we reset the broken gates and rebuild broken lives. Even after the local power brokers and opposition realized Nehemiah had permission and resources from the king, they didn’t stop trying to sabotage Nehemiah’s repairs to the broken walls and gates. According to Nehemiah 4, Sanballat began to jeer and mock Nehemiah and the other Jewish citizens as they worked. First, it was name-calling, and then the criticism focused on the quality of their work.

A different choice

Too often today, if someone doesn’t like something another is doing, the response is to mock them or question their worth. That’s what the opposition did, but it was not what Nehemiah did. He chose to pray. Right in the middle of the mocking, Nehemiah prayed that God would listen and notice that he and his coworkers were despised. Instead of fighting back, he asked that God fight back for them. We don’t need to respond to every criticism and complaint. We can simply make it a matter of prayer and let God fight for us.

But be prepared to see that praying doesn’t guarantee the opposition will immediately stop their pushback. In the case of Nehemiah, his prayers just made his enemies angrier. So Nehemiah prayed again and set guards to protect the work of the people. Nehemiah realized his project was bigger than he was capable of doing, even with all of the help he had recruited. If this project was to be finished, it would depend on God’s help to strengthen the spirits and hands of the labor force as well as the work God would do in the Heavenly places where spiritual battles are won.

The right foundation

Prayer is foundational to all kingdom work. Brilliant ideas and hard work alone will not bring success when taking on a commissioned project from God. Yes, we need ideas and strategy and will have to sweat a little. But kingdom work requires the use of the resources God has given us. The most important action you can take this year as you do your kingdom work is to pray and to recruit a prayer team to support you. To go it alone is a sure way to fail.

If you made resolutions or plans this year and you didn’t pray about them, maybe now is time for a reset. If God has put a burden on your heart and you have accepted his call, then it’s time to ask a few friends to be your prayer team. Every kingdom expansion we read about in our Bibles involved prayer. It would be foolish for us to think we can do God’s work in our own strength.

A wise strategy

Nehemiah noticed his workforce was spread out and therefore unable to prevent the enemy from sneak attacks on individuals as they worked. His strategy was to place some workers in various places to watch. If they saw the enemy attack, they blew their trumpets to summon others to their aid. Maybe that’s an approach we should take as well. Part of our kingdom responsibilities includes watching out for each other. When we see opposition coming against one another or we see fatigue and weakness in a brother or sister, the best thing we can do is sound an alarm.

But first we pray, no matter how urgent the battle, because as Phil Wickham reminds us in his song by the same name, the battle belongs to the Lord. Listen, read the lyrics (click here), and prepare for victory as you continue your work for God and help others do theirs, too.

Your time with God’s Word
Nehemiah‬ ‭4:1-23‬; ‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭2:5, 9, 11-12‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Photo by SHVETS production from Pexels

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