The Color of Splakna

If “splakna” sounds like a made-up word, it is. The Greeks made it up thousands of years ago. Uncomfortable, a bit splattery, a bit rocky. But more on that later.

Last Christmas Eve as we were preparing food, Ginger entertained Mama with The Piano Guys video clips. Such excellent and creative musicians! Two songs that I love are “Peponi”, an African-language version of Cold Play’s “Paradise”, and “We Could’ve Had It All”, The Piano Guys’ rendition of Adel’s hit single.

The songs are very different in message, but startlingly the same in feeling. “Peponi” strains forward, clutching a vision of a better day, whereas “We Could’ve Had It All” looks backward with the writhing sting of lost love.

I was stirring a sauce, so without the visual aid of the videos I used my ears and heart more than my eyes and head. What struck me was the emotional intensity of both songs. I said to Ginger, “If those songs were two separate stews they would share a lot of the same spices.” Yes, I felt that in my bones, but “What spices?” I mulled it over, and it became clear; the shared ingredients are wistfulness and yearning, intensely wistful yearning.

Splakna! Gut-churning, burning, drive. Here’s what inspirational film producer Stew Redwine says about splakna. “This ancient Greek word evolved from referring to the nobler entrails used in sacrifice… [The word came] to describe the seat of the affections in humans. Literally the guts, viscera, [it] became gut level compassion, visceral feelings. Splakna is at the very core of our humanity. Splakna is that feeling in our guts when something really stirs us.”

How strange that the ardent straining towards paradise and the agonized grieving of lost love could put the same intensity of wistful yearning in our guts, or at least in our songs!

Then I remembered Ginger’s short art lesson given to me years ago. She said an art teacher of hers had explained that a skilled artist will choose a color to tie the whole painting together. If it is ochre, then ochre in varying amounts is mixed into every color on the pallet. It gives the painting an integrity, a unity in appearance. You may not detect the ochre in the blues, whites, and greens of the painting, but it’s there pulling the piece together.

In that same way, the color of our existence seems to be wistful yearning. All our moments are tinged with it. It is sharply apparent when love fails us and when our souls strain towards “a better land.” But it is also there in our times of joy, spilling over even into our pools of peace. Gently we understand that nothing gets to be truly perfect here. No one is faultless. No moment is without blemish. To one degree or another we are always in the shadow of “if only.”

While wistful yearning is the ubiquitous spice of our lives, the very color of our guts, there is joy in this: Grace calls us to the wistfulness of eager anticipation, and mercy lifts us from the sour yearning of regret.

My Own Native Tongue

A friend of mine is going through the stress, conflict, and sadness that accompanies putting one’s aging mother in a nursing home. I am praying that God will grant her some degree of serenity in the midst of the upset. Nothing really new in all this; she’s experiencing the typical trials of aging, and I’m supporting her as I can through prayer. What is new is that she is an atheist. She respects my right to hold my own convictions, but they doesn’t make sense to her. Nor does she want me to explain them. However, she still appreciates knowing that I care and that I pray for her and her mom.

But I do some funny gyrations in praying: “Lord, grant her the peace that… (passes all understanding? That kind of peace comes from believing in You.) Lord, should I be asking You to send what she is currently saying “no” to? Can You even do that? Isn’t that peace dependent on our acceptance of it, rather than on Your giving of it?”

I used to have a rather entrepreneurial view of God and His blessings: “Now you can get your (needed blessings) exclusively at (my church) for a limited time only.” Hey, if you want what God provides, you’ll just have to line up and get it straight from the Source.

I no longer believe that God withholds things so people will humble themselves and come asking. But I do believe that often when we don’t get something, it’s not because He’s not offering it. The duck’s back does not stay dry because it’s not raining; it repels the rain. And we often repel the mechanics of His blessings which Jesus says are given to the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45).

So, I think the pipe is usually plugged on our end, not His, and I really don’t know how to pray for her. Lucky that the Holy Spirit “intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26). I know that my best wishes for her pale in the presence of God’s tender regard for her. So I trust Him to do with my bumbling prayer whatever He will: laugh at it, respect it as my best attempt, or answer it. I trust Him to understand my intent, and I trust Him to do what He can in her life.

But none of that is the point of this post, it’s only context. My main thought comes at the intersection of two different contexts, so here’s the other context. I was raised in the language of faith. My later education helped me speak the more pervasive language of rationalism. Simultaneously I learned the mental discipline of logic. I value both. I have encouraged people to be “bilingual” so that they can cherish, understand, and communicate things of faith (in that language) and still communicate with the populace in the language of rationalism which includes the dialects of naturalism and human psychology. I like being bilingual, but I’ll have to admit that my own native tongue of faith is not always framing the first thoughts that pop into my mind, especially when a non-believer addresses me. I’m rethinking that now. (See “Jonah and the Dress Code” for another outcome of this rethinking.)

Now, with both contexts in mind, let’s take a look at my main thought. My friend was raised by a God-fearing mother who still longs to have her daughter soften her stand against faith and “all things unseen.” I’m not the only one praying for this friend. What if God does interfere in her life and strike her with a tidal wave of peace, even joy? What if He makes her head spin and her mouth cry, “Wow! Where’d that come from?” (He entered unbidden into Saul/Paul’s life just as invasively, so why not?.) And what if she calls me and sends up a trial balloon: “Jim, the strangest thing happened…” What do I say then? (That is the point of this post.)

My comfy “rationalist/psychology-speak” might sound like, “Wow, I’m so glad for you! It’s amazing how the mind and body work together to bring relief when it’s most needed. Emotional exhaustion often drains us and allows the endorphins to bring us that unexpected state of bliss, even euphoria. I’m glad you’ve gotten a reprieve.”

If I were to respond in this way I would still be using my second language to praise the Creator for how He has indeed made us. The design of our bodies and psyches is indeed a miracle, and how often I have spoken in the rational language and silently praised Him in the faith language. However, in avoiding speaking my native tongue out loud, I might be robbing her of seeing “the culture that lives next door.” Even worse, I might be blocking a greater miracle that could have happened; a miracle that would have answered a deeper prayer, an older prayer prayed for years by her mother. 

What if I used my native tongue and said, “Wow, I’m so glad to hear that! Perhaps God gave you a taste of the joy that has strengthened His children through so many dark times. I’m glad He did that for you.”

I know. Neither sounds really great. I didn’t say I was a Toastmaster. I can still work on my delivery of either sentiment, but let’s consider the relative merits of either language at a time when a non-believing friend has tasted something good. Time for a risk/benefit analysis: She’s already happy. Something good has happened, and she wanted to share it with me even though (or maybe because) she knows I see the world differently.

Risk: My thanking God for His mercy to her triggers her “proselytize-o-meter,” and she thinks, “Argh! Those Christians just won’t give it a rest!” Then our friendship cools.

Potential Benefit: She was already wondering, and now a friend has strengthened that wonderment. Then she opens, even if slightly, to friendship with God.

Analysis: It is obvious to me that the “friendship with God” benefit far outweighs the “lost friendship with me” risk. Yet, my heart often chooses the “safety” of maintaining friendships.

No matter what response I give her I would probably only hear her answer with a “Hmm…” or a similar “give me room” sound, since worldview thoughts are personal, and changing a worldview takes intensely personal rewiring. So, relinquishing any hope of immediate feedback or a Hollywood ending, I would rather risk being in line with the greater miracle. I would rather begin speaking my own native tongue, out loud, with grace.

Jonah and the Dress Code

First Jonah. I used to believe that Jonah was swallowed by a huge fish. Uh huh! Wild isn’t it! A huge fish, bigger than any we have on earth now, came up and chomp! Jonah was gone. But then he lived under water for three days. If any young chum challenged my belief, I was quick to say that with God all things are possible. That’s a laughable position in today’s educated circles, yet should it be? Rand Miller (and various episodes of Star Trek) said, “In an infinite universe all things are possible?” What’s the difference? One is scientific and the other mere religious wistfulness? Who gets to make that distinction?

In college I learned that the Jonah story is an excellent satire, “On par with ‘All in the Family’.” Yep, that’s what my Literature of the Bible teacher told us. And it’s true. It is great satire. Jonah goes to great lengths to avoid taking God’s message to Nineveh, not because he’s shy, but because He fears that God’s great mercy will spare the Ninevites, and He does, and that’s one point of the story. Another point is revealed when Jonah gets angry over a favorite bush that dies. So the conclusion is that God’s own people, the ones who are supposed to be busy sharing Him with others, are often more concerned with their minor possessions than they are with a perishing population.

Yeah, it’s a great satire; so good that it stands by itself. It doesn’t have to be believed as a factual story. And to story after story I have applied the same literary and psychological lenses, gaining great insights, and relaxing my grip on the reality of the stories. “Who cares if Samson ever lived? What matters is that I learn that God is behind all apparent strength for good, arrogance gets us into trouble, and God is willing to return to the humbled.” Good lessons. But as I quietly let Samson fade into the realm of fairy tale, I may be surrendering the very faith that led me to those noble conclusions. As Samson becomes fiction, so too might His God, so too might the more expository passages of the Bible. My interpretation of Samson is still colored by the traditional values I learned as a boy. Without a real God, my children may interpret Samson very differently. Perhaps they will conclude that the real point of the story is “Keep your secrets, don’t cut your hair, and be sure to get revenge even if it kills you.”

Now the dress code. As an academy principal with a drug problem on campus, I often heard teachers say, “We’re tired of enforcing the dress code. It’s a never-ending drag. Let’s just give up that battle and focus on the things that really matter.” I wanted relief as much as they did. And I might have ended the dress code, but for one piece of research. It claimed that students learn our values through our consistency in the little things. When we enforce dress codes, students can show their burgeoning independence and test the boundaries in ways that harm no one. If our codes only address criminal activity rather than civility, then our battles will be staged on the fields of criminal behavior. Better to battle for social graces. Furthermore, it said that when students see us take issue over attire, their internal response is “Wow! I can only imagine how crazy they’d get if I brought weed to school.”

Jonah as the dress code. Maybe there are some points of Christian faith that are on the fringe of human belief. They are easy to sacrifice in order to live amicably with non-believers. But there is a huge difference between being circumspect in what I discuss with them and actually shaving my belief system until it fits in the “human reason” box. Perhaps when we fit things in the human reason box we find that box shrinking until it’s not just Jonah that gets squeezed out. So do other stories and teachings and even principles. What is left is a verbal pabulum with no empowering miracle or mystery behind it. No motivation to conform one’s life to a grand God who really is. We incrementally compromise the “I AM” into the “he symbolizes…”

While there is much to enjoy in Jonah from a literary and psychological point of view, and while there are stories in the Bible that are told only to illustrate a point, maybe I need to move my literal belief back out into some of the hard to defend hinterlands of reason and debate. Once I get there, I don’t actually have to debate. I can just silently stand there in belief. It may be a lonely outpost but it guards the more central tenets of my faith.

Though this writing is not specifically about origins, this dynamic connection between the easily argued fringe beliefs and the core of one’s faith was summed up in a friend’s comment. He said, “If I can’t believe that God spoke the worlds into existence, then how am I to believe He can resurrect a life, break the bonds of an addiction, mend a relationship, or save my soul? It’s all a miracle of His grace.”

Receiving Gifts as Payments

I dreamed I was on an Adventist tour of a cathedral. A priest was explaining its significance to the group. The group displayed an embarrassing nonchalance and low-level disrespect, so I stayed by to thank him for the presentation. He said that he had drawn information from a book he had written about the cathedral, and he presented me with a copy. I was delighted and told him “Thanks!”

In my very next breath, I mentioned that I had contributed to some Catholic charity. I do this outside of dreams, too. Why? Is it to further show affiliation with the gift-giver? Maybe. But I also want to show myself worthy of the gift. Perhaps I think that if I earned it, then it is in my power to keep earning more. If it is only a gift, then it is all out of my control. Or perhaps I don’t like feeling obligated to return the favor, so I quickly drop a hint that I have already done the favor before getting the gift. I can be a cheerful giver, but it’s hard to be a gracious getter.

It is so human to receive gifts as though they were payments. A friend gives you a gift, and deep down you think you earned it. “I’m a pretty good friend. I deserve this. I laugh at their jokes.” It’s human to avoid indebtedness.

When by God’s unmerited grace and mercy we live to see a new day and we have sufficient food and adequate health, why do we not in overwhelming gratitude turn to share the blessing with others? Perhaps in some way we feel we have earned this bit of life, and the less fortunate aren’t trying hard enough. In other words we mentally recreate the Indian caste system. It’s either karma, God’s will, or natural consequence, that we have what we have and that they lack what they lack.

In this, we also join the ancient Jews who had been chosen because they were an unsightly mess. God was showing what He could do “with the least of these.” His blessings elevated the children of Israel until they had laudable hygiene, progressive engineering and philosophy, and astounding wealth. He wanted them to be a channel of His blessing to other people, to be a nation of priests as the world regained its rightful place as His loved children. Instead, they felt that they were somehow worthy and that God’s blessings were meant for no one else.

Result: a stoppage in the flow of God’s blessing. He’d called a small scruffy group so that they could see the outrageous miracle of His blessing and gratefully pass it on. Instead, their feeling of entitlement made them horde the gifts by which they were to cooperate and they became a stench to others.

When we feel we’ve earned a blessing we are less likely to pass it on, and we become like the Dead Sea always taking and becoming less and less life-sustaining. We are poisoned by what we do not pass on.

A Spa for the Soul

Living in a new home in a new housing development means that we have ongoing conversations with builders, the cabinet shop, neighbors, customer satisfaction reps, etc. We’re all settling in and bumping elbows a bit in the process. If we have reported a need, the people at the sales office are particularly likely to declare that they will “be available this Saturday.” I’m sure they mention Saturday the most, because it shows they are willing to accommodate the working person’s typical schedule. They’ve all been nice people.

I find myself saying to them and to others, “Sorry, I’ll be out of town this Saturday.” It’s true. Ginger and I leave Riverside to hop over into Loma Linda so that we can take Mom and Dad to church. Often we are not home until evening.

This morning, I am tempted to try this response: “Sorry. That won’t work for me. That’s my Sabbath. It’s a weekly appointment with God so that He can soften the crust that has started to cling to me over the week. He soaks it loose and rinses it away. It’s a day long process of exfoliating my soul. If I miss that appointment, you won’t want to see me on Monday.”

A bit dramatic? It’s also a bit true. Somehow I’d like to invite others into the blessing of having a spa for the soul. 

Uncensored Questions

I lay awake for a while pondering the first dream (See "Interview for Questions" below.), then drifted off again and had a very short snippet of a dream. In this second dream I saw a two-tab file system superimposed on an image of the brain. The first tab was labeled “Pain”. The second tab was unlabeled. On the face of the lager area of the folder beneath the tabs was the word “Tolerance.” It was unclear if it was on the folder labeled “pain” or on the unlabeled folder. That was all the action this dream contained.

Still asleep, I perceived that this was a model of how we begin instruction for the very young. The “Pain” tab was actually labeled according to what we strive to avoid. We want the youngsters to experience happiness, curiosity, and comfort as they approach a new body of knowledge. The word “Tolerance” stood for the inclusiveness we strive to achieve. Not only do we work to include all learners, we also want all learners to include all their classmates. Therefore we help them filter out any words or questions that may cause discomfort to their classmates.

This all seemed good and normal and definitely not new or insightful. But suddenly, I saw that in doing this, we were actually cutting off a segment of the good questions they might have later asked. Key point! If we are brought up to self-cancel any questions that might offend or cause discomfort to any individual or class of people, then some of the most helpful questions may die before they are born.

To assume that every culture, every ideology, every individual presents equally valid ways of approaching life is to tacitly state that nothing can actually get better; no correction is needed by anyone. And the only way to believe that no corrections are needed is by believing that no mistakes have been made; that is, every culture, ideology, or individual gets it right the first time. Therefore, there is no real need to teach critical thinking nor to engage in discussion. Education itself is not possible. In contrast, we know that education is needed. Mistakes have been made. There are better ways of doing things. Progress is still possible, even desirable.

If people grew up learning to silently cancel any questions that might cause discomfort to a neighbor or challenge another person’s practices, they would unwittingly lose some of the very questions that would have added depth and breadth to their pursuit of knowledge. They would injure that deeper ring of honest, high-quality inquisitiveness (which was the focus of the first dream.)

Our daily walk must include uncensored questions, just the way the Lord or genetics or situations give them to us. Intelligence guides our search for answers, and wisdom vetoes many of our options, but we need to respect all our questions, even the rude ones.

Interview for the Questions

On the night of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, Dec. 14, 2012, I went to sleep thinking about some of the boys we had at Rogers who might have been able to do something like that, and I mentally reviewed our safety plan and worried a bit for Clare. At a deep level I felt proud and protective of devoted teachers and committed principals.

In the night I dreamed that someone asked me if there was a test to help screen for good principals or good teachers. I thought about how if there were one, I probably wouldn’t pass it, yet I have done well as a principal. I have little faith in such tests, because I think we jump to conclusions when we are searching for “the indicators” of success. Also, I think each person is far more complex than we are currently able to map, and those complexities become even more baffling as the person interacts with other complex people.

I didn’t mention any of that to the questioner, but here’s what I said, and it still makes sense while I am awake. “You can view the knowledge in your brain as being the stuff stored between the cortex and a deeper level (which I sketched as being a ring roughly paralleling the curve of the cortex, but a little closer to the center of the brain.) The ring represents something very different from the information one has accumulated in the levels closer to the surface. Instead of information, the deeper ring stands for the questions one asks oneself about a topic.”

I said that the tests we design are based on the assumption that a principal or teacher needs a certain amount of basic information and perhaps some innate abilities. We design tests to identify how much of that information or skill the person possesses. However, this all draws only on the “stuff” stored in the more superficial levels of the brain. It doesn’t tap into the wisdom found in the deeper ring of self-generated questions. Who would think to test a person on the questions they have? Yet it’s the questions that a person holds which drive him or her to use the information he or she has already accumulated. It is the personally-generated questions that lead him or her to design action research which then leads that person to greater practical knowledge and broader ability.

The questions a person asks are a good measure of their creativity, attentiveness, and ability to connect various ideas in new and helpful ways. The quality of their questions also determine the clarity of their apprehension of new knowledge and the extent to which they can add to the theory and practice of the profession. The quality of these questions even help to increase the interest level of the reports they subsequently create, or the way they inform and persuade their colleagues.

Obviously, the knowledge they accumulate and the innate abilities they may possess will enrich and strengthen their work. Those are essential to have, but the questions the candidates generate may be the deeper determinant of how far they will go and what they will add to the profession.

So. How do we explore the quality of a candidate’s questions? This, too, is part of the Christian walk.

God Is Love, But...

What does the “but” mean? 

We know that God is love, but we have a way of qualifying that truth. With elaborate arguments and explanations we intone, “God is love, but not for all people.” “God is love, but not all the time.” “God is love, but even His love has limits.”

John, the loved disciple, used not even one qualifier. He simply left it at “God is love.”

So, if we ever find ourselves thinking, “God is love, but…” we are moving into a discussion of something besides God.” It may be a very worthwhile discussion. It may have to do with the ways we do or don’t respond to His love. It may be about some of the situations in which we misunderstand His love. It may illustrate ways in which we have misapplied His love. It may be a fine and helpful discussion, but it will be about something outside the nature of the God who is love.

I would repeat: Anytime you hear someone say (or even imply) “God is love, but…” be aware that they are beginning to talk about something outside of God.

"God's Love" as a Brick

Is it possible to use our thoughts about God’s nature to neutralize Him in our life? I think so.

Sometimes we build a wall around our life. Every brick has “God is love” written on it and we place each brick facing outward so that if God comes around, He will see “God is love” and remember not to interfere in the affairs of our little castle. Each God-is-love brick really says, “God would be rude to come in and try to rearrange our furniture. We like things pretty much as they are, and God loves us too much to be a nuisance or an irritant.”

That soft little lie is a subtle and effective tranquilizer we may use against the “still small voice.” We may have felt the Lord’s prompting and decided to make a change in our life. But then it happens; we come face to face with the very thing, and we delay. Our habits, those practiced patterns that free us from the work of conscious thought, push hard for our traditional response. Change is hard. We feel pain and unrest when we use our conscious mind to interrupt a well-drilled habit. So we drag our feet and question our commitment. A wordless tussle of pure appetite or impulse ensues, and too often our conscious mind steps in to end the battle with that comfortable twisting of the truth: “God loves me too much to throw me out for one broken promise.” So we end the struggle, give into the old way, and salve our conscience with songs of praise for His never-ending love.

In that moment—that moment of declaring His love—the battle is lost. We have used “God’s love” to deafen our ears and to fend Him off. We do the very thing His Spirit has been prodding us not to do. We have resisted the renewing of our mind which could have transformed us.

It is true that He readily and lavishly forgives. And it is often—though not always—true that one failure will not alter the course of our life. But how often can we claim “His love” as an excuse for our non-responsiveness? How many times can we break a commitment before that commitment exists only in our mind and in utter contrast to our behavior? How long can we use “His love” to continue our life of self-deception and incongruence?

Certainly God still loves us when we fail. We never have to fear when we limp back asking for mercy; the prodigal’s father made that very clear. But we should fear, we should quake and tremble, at the thought of using “His love” as a sedative to avoid the pain of change. We should be terrified of picking up the brick of “His love” and throwing it in His teeth.

Solomon said, “His banner over me is love.” But that is a banner of ownership. When we raise a national flag, it means we accept responsibility to that flag. If we slip on a wedding ring, it means we accept all the “burdens” of faithfulness along with all of its delights. If “I am the Lord’s and He is mine,” then we will claim His love as being more potent and more tasty than the other “lover” that we need to dismiss. If He is “the desire of my heart” then we will allow that desire to overshadow all lesser desires.

“God’s love” must be a banner, not a brick.

The Ironic Dance of Faith, Action, and Intervention

“So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God” (Nehemiah 6:15-16).

Here’s the beauty of faith and the power of focus. In the story of Nehemiah rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem we see that his confidence in God is so deep that it requires few words. Nehemiah has many reasons to turn from wall-building; many things to spend time pleading with God about. Enemies threaten him. Insiders scheme and betray him. Nobles abuse their own working class. Nehemiah has political and financial decisions to make and 500 mouths to feed at his own table.

A person of faith takes troubles to God in prayer. A person of deep faith leaves them there and goes back to work. So Nehemiah keeps his prayers short and pointed. In a few words he drops all his worries and wishes with the God who has good ears and a trustworthy heart.

Nehemiah doesn’t keep a list of prayer requests and the date of their fulfillment. He’s not looking for proof of God’s care; he fully believes God will do all that is needed… whenever He chooses to. So Nehemiah simply implores, “Remember, O Lord,” and then he is right back to wall-building. That’s the faith of confidence and trust.

While Nehemiah wished for his enemies to be silenced, he wastes no time pleading with God for that. Instead he maintains focus and works diligently trusting all eventualities to God. Now a scant 52 days later, the wall is finished! Now the tables have turned and Nehemiah’s enemies are intimidated. Nehemiah is avenged! His faith has allowed him to keep focus and to keep working. God now uses his accomplishment to silence and intimidate the enemies.

What a tight dance between our faith in God, our action in this world, and God’s faithful follow through. Some would scoff and say, “You’re an idiot. There was no God. Nehemiah did it all. It’s only natural consequence. He kept working and the superstitious enemies were terrified by his speedy achievement.”

I can’t agree that this was all human and that God was not needed. First, Nehemiah, needed God. He was clearly vexed by the various impediments he faced. Without a God in whom to confide Nehemiah might have taken one of three options: Spend time chasing the devil’s dogs, lose nerve and go back to Babylon, or angrily push the completion of the project. He obviously didn’t do the first two, and the outcomes show that he didn’t take the third option, either. A willful person full of his own energy “twists the knife” once he is successful: “Who can I now drag behind my chariot?” Instead, after the wall is completed, Nehemiah turns his attention to defending the Name of God through demanding respect for His law. God was definitely active in the story, because He was active in the main character.

Second, the speed of completion could be, but isn’t necessarily, attributable to Nehemiah’s single-mindedness. Something about the 52 days didn’t look like human achievement to the naysayers. We ought to be just as clear-sighted as we assign credit.

And finally, without God’s influence, the enemies could just as easily have set about to assassinate Nehemiah, undo the wall, pillage the farmers outside the gates, etc. It was not just one or two lowlife rabble-rousers that shut up; “all the surrounding nations… lost their confidence” (6:16). That is the work of God in the hearts of the unrepentant.

So there’s the dance: Nehemiah’s confidence in God freed him to stay focused on the work. God blessed and accelerated the resulting effort. Then God used Nehemiah’s success to do what Nehemiah could not take time to do: silence his enemies. It’s a divine game of billiards. Even when we see all the balls, God helps us identify the critical one. We take the shot, and God remains active in the resulting movements.