Nehemiah 7 Devotional

A City Waiting for People

“Now the city was large and spacious, but there were few people in it, and the houses had not yet been rebuilt.”Nehemiah 7:4 (BSB)

The wall is up and the doors are hung, and Nehemiah sets the city in order. He puts his brother Hanani in charge along with Hananiah, a faithful man who feared God more than most (7:1-2), and orders the gates guarded (7:3). Then the chapter pauses on an unfinished fact. The city is large and spacious, but few people live in it, and the houses are not yet rebuilt (7:4). A wall by itself does not make a city.

What happens next is credited to God. He puts it into Nehemiah's heart to enroll the people by family, and Nehemiah finds the register of those who first came back (7:5). Most of the chapter repeats that earlier list, the one recorded in Ezra 2. God was rebuilding a people, not only a structure, and he guides even a task like taking a census. The work God is doing in your life also has people at its center, and you can trust him to direct the ordinary steps that come next.

To think about: What ordinary next step might God be putting on your heart, especially one that involves the people around you?