Cooperation for a better community
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send your username and password to you.
Rev. Christopher Todd
Words of Restoration
I have been blessed to live in Coosa County for almost 10 years now. I have served this community for more than 11 years, pastoring The New Home Missionary Baptist Church in the historic Hissop Community. I regularly hear about times gone by, the rich history of the small communities that dot the county landscape. While this area has always been rural with a small population, there was vibrancy and life in many areas that simply no longer exist.
Many people look at those past periods of history with a sense of nostalgia. Many people want to return to those times. That is the case in some individuals’ lives, as well – a desire to go back to some time and point in history when things appeared to be better.
I cannot speak with personal experience as to whether or not that is true. But I do know this: life cannot be lived going backward. Nor can we go back in time. Moreover, if we were honest, we too often glorify previous times, failing to realize that every period has its share of difficulty and brokenness.
I believe a better idea is to consider how can we live moving forward? For whatever has been “lost” or broken, how can we cooperate in the present to realize our potential?
The book of Nehemiah in the Bible gives us those lessons. There, he teaches us about leadership and followership, how human cooperation and divine intervention go hand in hand. For all of us today, as citizens of this community called Coosa, we should recognize that first, God is able, and secondly, we should be available.
It must be noted that this cooperation starts with what I call a holy discontentment, discontentment with the status quo, the ruins that lay around us. That was Nehemiah’s position. Nehemiah, although in exile, upon hearing the distress of Jerusalem, wept for his homeland (Nehemiah 1:4). But Nehemiah did not stop with mourning; Nehemiah engaged in praying.
Nehemiah confessed his sins and sought divine support to address the situation at hand (Nehemiah 1:5-11). And the Lord does that: God gives Nehemiah radical favor with his boss, Persian king Artaxerxes, and allowed him to return home to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2:1-8).
In Nehemiah 2, we can uncover a template that I believe can assist you and I in rebuilding and realizing our potential. Upon arrival in Jerusalem, Nehemiah gains firsthand knowledge of the situation. Instead of relying merely on the reports of others or being enamored by Jerusalem’s past, Nehemiah personally assesses the city’s present condition (Nehemiah 2:11-15). Friends, it does us little good to be consumed about the past and fail to critically and honestly assess our present.
It’s only after necessary examination that Nehemiah developed an appropriate action plan. Nehemiah does so by honestly acknowledging and addressing the problems at hand.
Nehemiah challenges the remnant who has lived in these distressing conditions, those living in these circumstances and choosing not to do anything about it. Sometimes it takes a new perspective, outside eyes and a fresh look from God-sent leadership to show us what we already see and lovingly force us to confront the desolation and difficulty that others have become comfortable with.
Nehemiah starts with concern, which leads to assessment and acknowledgment; then comes a plan of action. Nehemiah’s loving confrontation of this small band of citizens leads them to engage in a plan with renewed purpose and courage. It is summarized in Nehemiah 2:17, “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision.”
Nehemiah charges the people to engage in changing their circumstances, to change their community. It was a call to cooperate together so that this dishonorable state would not be their lot.
That’s my encouragement to you today. Let us cooperate together, not dwelling on our past, but honestly recognizing our present – good and bad – and moving forward toward the potential that can be realized. Our economic livelihood depends on it. Our increased quality of life depends on it. Having a genuine, caring, compassionate, thriving community depends on it. Our future depends on it.
I love this community as I am sure many of you do, as well. However, for us all to experience the fullness of our potential, we must cooperate together, not living in the past, recognizing our present reality, and reaching forward to the potential that can be realized.
Christopher M. Todd is a Coosa County resident and the pastor of The New Home Missionary Baptist Church near Rockford.