There is a scene in the film Independence Day in which Jeff Goldblum has to get in to a space ship with Will Smith, who doesn’t know how to fly it! Playing the character David Levinson who is the only person on the planet with the knowledge of how to deliver a virus, Goldblum acts full of surprise -‘What me’! He is after all only a telephone engineer or so he says. There simply isn’t the time to train someone else. This is his moment – right place and right experience a combination that lacks one final ingredient. To risk all and board the space ship Goldblum needed and had the right level of concern for his fellow man. This is a reoccurring theme in life and it makes good drama.
When I look at the bible character Nehemiah I see this very same set of circumstances. Here’s a chap in the right place at the right time – born to do the job! Reading his story reminds us we are unique, the situation we are in is often unique; our experience to this point is part of God’s gift to a problem that God intends to solve with our involvement.
The first couple of chapters of Nehemiah reveals a person in the right place at the right time and with a heart that ached for a specific people group. Well, we might not get to travel into space or pretend to be in a film! We may not stand as Nehemiah did before a king or world leader influencing a rescue plan. However, I like to think that every day before and every day after Nehemiah’s famous audience with the king he was aware of being in the right place at the right time. Which is shorthand for accepting that our life situations and circumstances are not all to be avoided but embraced as opportunities we are specifically tailored for.
Every day God invites us to walk with him and feel His heart beat, see the world as He sees it and if we are so moved we might say as Jesus did in the face of massive adversity – ‘Not my will but the will of God’. In so doing we might be responding to an invitation from God to take part in revealing love, liberty and life where we are best suited to.
I take the words of Jesus ‘Not my but yours’ to indicate that the greater path lays not where we would like to go but need to go for the benefit of others.
Rob Wykes 