Rebuilding the walls around us

Itai Chipunza
Nehemiah 1 verse 3 to 4

AND they said to me, the survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire. So it was, when I heard these words that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days, I was fasting and praying before the Lord of Heaven.

The Lord works in amazing ways. One of the most amazing things being how he has pre-planned everything for our existence and it is entirely up to us to embrace His plan or choose to make up our own with the assistance of the devil. Because you are either with Him or against Him, there are no neutral parties. He will not force Himself on anyone. Nehemiah 1 verse 3 and 4 to me speaks directly to us Zimbabweans. I say so because, just like Nehemiah we are faced with a task only possible by the power of God. That task being to rebuild the walls of our great nation. So when I read the verse, to me it reads this way “And they said to me, the survivors who are left from the 2008 era in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Zimbabwe is broken down, and its gates are burnt with fire. So it was, when I heard these words that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days, I was fasting and praying before the Lord of Heaven.”

Largely the human race is very quick to point fingers and find someone to blame for their problems, but it is my belief that pointing out who is to blame will not solve the problem, it will just waste time that can be spent crafting solutions. The first step to coming up with solutions is to seek our Lord.

When Nehemiah is told of the huge problem of the decay of Jerusalem, he does not blame anyone; instead, he prays and fasts before the Lord of Heaven.

Although his heart is broken by what transpired and the state of Jerusalem, he does not make it anyone else’s responsibility but his own to seek God. In the same manner when we see the sudden rise in cost of living, unemployment, increasing number of street kids, crime increasing because of lack, abuse of citizens by people who should protect them, we should not point a finger to anyone, instead, we should seek the Lord and cry out before Him for he is indeed our only refuge. It is our mandate as the people of this nation to care for Zimbabwe like it is our baby.

Nehemiah was a man in captivity but his heart was longing for the day Jerusalem would be restored. Regardless of how far you are from Zimbabwe’s problems, your heart should be longing to see our nation on its feet again. This starts with us seeking the Lord on behalf of the nation. It starts with us moving from the comfort of begging from other countries for mercy to us begging the Lord for divine empowerment.

We have been told of the years when a small nation like Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Africa, my mum used to tell me how her classmates in Nigeria would swear she has been to Europe when they saw pictures of her in the streets of Zimbabwe. To most youth today, this is as good as folktales of baboons and monkeys talking, yet in my spirit I know the Lord can empower us to rebuild our nation to its former glory.

When I say this, a lot of people immediately start thinking of how they can be politicians. But I believe this is limiting the move of God. And besides, we cannot all be called into politics; God is a God of order, he cannot ordain the whole nation into one profession. He has placed in our nation many professions, many gifts, and many talents.

The point is to strive to rebuild your profession to a world class service. If everyone does this to the best of their abilities, we can easily have a nation of world class service provision, thus turning Zimbabwe into a world class nation. For example, if you are a teacher, make no students that comes into your classroom return home with the same minds, may they indeed be taught. If you are in the hotel business, change the way they rate hotels by giving everyone who come a true Zimbabwean experience. In the same manner if you are a writer, write articles that empower and encourage, not those that drain life from our already weak people.

The technology that comes from those called into it should mark us as the only African nation which will shun European products because we do just fine without them. This is only possible if we stop expecting someone else to do it and make up our minds that it is our responsibility individually. By the Lord’s guidance we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us.

This is the only way to rebuild our nation, each one doing their part to be the best they can be. I know as some of you read this, you are so discouraged that it seems impossible, others have a mountain of reasons why they cannot or will not do it. But the Lord says what is impossible with man, is possible with God for with God, nothing is impossible. So among the long list of reasons why you will not change and revolutionise your profession, find the single reason why you will and the Lord can empower you to change a whole nation and even the world.

The mind is like a sponge. It absorbs what is around it. If you take a sponge and put it close to sewage water, oil, mud and all sorts of filthy liquids, it will indeed stink because it will absorb all these until it is full. In the same manner, if you spend time with negative people, people that tell you of the horrible things happening in your life and never encourage you, in no time you will become a negative person.

Negativity is the worst poison you can allow into your life. Negativity not only destroys your current success but will destroy your future and the future of your children because it will tell you not to try. Actually to simplify it, negative people are as good as dead because they will amount to nothing just like a dead body. All they do is float from day to day.

Negativity will tell you, the price of cooking oil is gone up, you cannot afford it, run away from your family, they are a burden to you. But a positive mindset will say, the price of cooking oil is gone up, thank God we can boil meat and we have firewood to do a little braai. A negative mindset will tell you that you are a poor man, you only eat vegetables, a positive mindset says, let me eat vegetables now while I save money to invest, besides, veggies are healthy. Stay positive no matter what you see daily in the streets, a negative mindset is the beginning of the death of not only your present, but the death of your future too.