January 16

Focus
 
“So I sent messengers to them, saying, ‘I am doing a great work and I cannot come down.  Why should the work stop while I leave it and come to you?’”
Nehemiah 6:3

Think about what has happened when you have skipped or missed meals because you have simply been too busy to eat.  Some necessary work or project captured all of your attention so that even though your body was certainly giving you signals that it was time to eat, you easily ignored those signals because of your intense focus on the task at hand.  It is not at all unlike Nehemiah’s focus on the work that was before him and his refusal to abandon that work in order to talk with those who opposed him.  Why should the work stop while he did something else?  When we fast, we can reach a point where our focus is so intensely set upon drawing closer to the Lord that we begin to ignore signals our bodies are giving us to eat.  To be certain, what we are doing when we are fasting is of greater significance than any project or deadline we may be facing.  Fasting allows our focus to be placed precisely where it needs to be.  Just as Nehemiah’s work would reach completion and come to an end, so too will our seasons of fasting.  Like Nehemiah, we too are building things that had been torn down as we fast.  We are doing a great work; why should the work stop?