Latest / Daily Devotions for Busy Lives / What to Do When You Want to Restart a Project You Walked Away From

Transcript

What to Do When You Want to Restart a Project You Walked Away From · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

• 0:01
  Speak: Stephen Bedard had pastored the same area churches
• 0:04
  for nine years when he stepped away. There was no blow-up and
• 0:07
  no scandal. His family had moved, and the year of commuting had
• 0:11
  become more than he could keep up. He knew it was time to go,
• 0:14
  and he left without another church lined up. The break
• 0:17
  stretched into years. He got sick, and his family went
• 0:21
  through a rough patch. The pulpit he had stood in for
• 0:23
  nearly a decade started to feel like a part of his life that was
• 0:26
  over, a thing he used to do. The truth was, Stephen wasn't done
• 0:31
  pastoring. He just didn't know it yet. We'll come back to what
• 0:34
  happened for Stephen, but
• 0:37
  first, welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm
• 0:40
  Bart Leger. I'm not proud of my quitting experience. I left
• 0:45
  college after my first year. At the time, it felt like I'd never
• 0:49
  go back. I figured I'd be okay moving forward, but it always
• 0:53
  bugged me. I did go back later and finished. Then I kept going
• 0:57
  through graduate work and eventually a doctorate. There's
• 1:00
  a doctor in front of my name because of a degree I quit and
• 1:03
  came back to. The year I walked away, I couldn't have told you
• 1:07
  any of that was coming. A lot of us have something we started
• 1:10
  with everything we had and then let go of. A book you were
• 1:14
  writing or a ministry you were sure God had put in front of you
• 1:17
  or a project you started, and walking away felt right at the
• 1:21
  time, and it may well have been right. Now you look at the thing
• 1:25
  and wonder whether you quit too soon. Here's what keeps most
• 1:29
  people from coming back. A restart means admitting the
• 1:32
  first run didn't get finished, and it means telling people who
• 1:34
  watched you walk away that you're trying again. And then
• 1:38
  there's always the fear that you won't finish it again a second
• 1:40
  time. That's a lot to swallow for something you might put down
• 1:44
  again. Nehemiah picked up a project a whole city had given
• 1:48
  up on. It's in Nehemiah 2, verse 17.
• 2:00
  The wall had been down a long time, and it had already been
• 2:07
  quit on. records an earlier rebuilding effort that got shut
• 2:12
  down by royal order, and the people stopped. By the time word
• 2:16
  reached Nehemiah in Persia, the report was that the wall was
• 2:19
  torn down and the gates were burned. So the work in front of
• 2:22
  him was work that people had already tried and abandoned.
• 2:25
  Then look at what he did before he said one word about it.
• 2:29
  Chapter 2 says,
• 2:45
  Now, listen to the verb in verse 17.
• 2:57
  Nehemiah had the king's letters and the authority to use them,
• 3:00
  and the first thing out of his mouth was an invitation. His
• 3:03
  plan was to get a whole city building. Here's how they did it
• 3:07
  in chapter 3. Somewhere around 40 crews, and the chapter keeps
• 3:11
  saying the same thing about them.
• 3:23
  That wall went up in 52 days. A ruin that old that people had
• 3:28
  already given up on once closed in under two months because
• 3:32
  everybody built the part in front of them. So, two things in
• 3:35
  Nehemiah's order. Go by yourself and look at the thing itself.
• 3:39
  Before you announce a comeback to anybody, then pick the piece
• 3:42
  of it that's in front of you where you already are. Three
• 3:45
  years in, a church asked Stephen to step in as its adjunct pastor
• 3:49
  for three months. Three months and then done. He said yes. Then
• 3:53
  came the thing he hadn't counted on. In his own words, he was
• 3:56
  amazed at how much he had missed being a pastor. Three months of
• 3:59
  filling in told him something about himself that three years
• 4:02
  of thinking about it never had. A pastor's retreat came after
• 4:05
  that, then a stretch of teaching at a Bible college. By the end
• 4:09
  of it, he was applying to churches again and looking
• 4:11
  forward to it. The church that called him was in his own
• 4:15
  hometown. The calling he thought he had closed the book on was
• 4:18
  waiting for him to come back and open it. Notice the size of the
• 4:22
  thing that reopened. Not a church plant, three months of
• 4:25
  filling a pulpit while somebody else figured out their next step.
• 4:29
  That was the section of wall in front of where he was standing.
• 4:32
  And he built it. Here's today's challenge. Write down the thing
• 4:35
  that you walked away Then write down what it would take to do
• 4:38
  the smallest piece of it this week. Just one piece the size of
• 4:42
  a phone call or a single page. Then do that piece before Sunday.
• 4:46
  And tell one person what you're doing. Nehemiah didn't rebuild
• 4:50
  the wall by himself, and he didn't plan to. Father, Nehemiah
• 4:54
  stood in front of a ruin that people had already given up on,
• 4:56
  and he asked the whole city to build it with him. Thank you
• 5:00
  that you aren't finished with the things we put down. For
• 5:03
  everybody listening who has something shelved and keeps
• 5:06
  wondering about it, give them the nerve to look at it squarely
• 5:09
  and the humility to ask for help. Show us the peace in front of us,
• 5:12
  and let us start there. In Jesus' name, amen. If this
• 5:16
  episode encouraged you today, would you share it with someone
• 5:18
  who might need to hear it? Just go to
• 5:21
  dailydevotionsforbusylives.com slash 360 and copy the link. It
• 5:26
  only takes a second, and it might make a difference in
• 5:28
  someone's day. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions
• 5:32
  for Busy Lives. Remember, every man on that wall built a part in
• 5:35
  front of his own house, and the whole thing went up in 52 days.
• 5:39
  Pick your piece and start there. Come back next time for more
• 5:43
  encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until
• 5:46
  then, God bless and have a great day.