The Daily Grind

As pastors, laboring among broken people (and being broken ourselves!) there’s a lot of mess.

Sometimes it feels like all you do is clean up the mess: “Clean-up on aisle 10!” So much work and effort, and it is most often unnoticed and unrewarding.

I recently concluded teaching a class called “When God Hands You the Impossible.” It was a study of the book of Nehemiah, and we were trying to learn from Nehemiah’s example as we face our own impossible tasks. During a session a few weeks ago, one of the class members brought up a detail that I had completely overlooked in our study. He pointed out that those who were rebuilding the wall had to spend time and energy hauling the debris away, cleaning up the rubble; and at the end of the day, tidying up the work site. Huh…hadn’t thought about that! (Being an electrician, and spending a lot of years on construction sites, it seemed pretty obvious to him!)

It’s one of those little details in Scripture that can end up speaking volumes into our lives.

I was immediately reminded of the times when, trying to supplement my income with part-time work, I took on the task of cleaning up worksites for my Dad – who was involved in commercial construction, installing acoustical ceilings in new office buildings. There were a lot of hours spent picking up the junk left behind the installers. It was dusty, dirty work. But somebody had to do it!

Somebody has to clean up the mess.
It matters.
It’s inglorious.
It’s sweaty, hard work.

This got me to thinking about how much of life is actually the daily grind – simple, direct, repetitive and ordinary tasks without which it would be impossible to build the good things we envision. Cleaning up the messiness around us is dull and often thankless work – certainly not what we signed up for in ministry. It is made even more difficult when the cultural noise around us literally shouts that life is all about the exciting, the evident, the big results.

I must have missed the conferences that were titled “I Want to Pastor an Ordinary Small Church with Consistent Clean-Up Required.”

The need for cleanup was not the only thing that emerged from our discussion of this lost detail in the story of how the Israelites rebuilt their city. We discovered that one of the keys to the success of rebuilding the wall was the “next to each other” principle. As each person worked on their section of the mess, they had the opportunity to look over and see that everyone else was doing similar work. Side by side, they could shout encouragement, laugh together and share tips over a coffee break. And, it allowed them to be ready to defend each other.

They had each other’s back, sharing the load if necessary – jumping in rather than sniping or criticizing each other’s work. The main point was the main point: rebuild the wall.

Their hearts were all in, at least in part because they were all in together.

The sense and experience of isolation kills! The daily grind of cleaning up the mess can grind a heart to dust without the knowledge that it matters. It’s important. It is an experience shared by everyone else. And that someone takes note.

One other neat idea that jumped out at me from looking more closely at the experience of rebuilding the wall occurred to me as a question: “Why all the names?”

Why bother with mentioning all the people who were showing up every day for 50 days, hauling broken stones away, dressing the usable ones and then repairing one broken section after another?

It mattered. They mattered, and the record of their names is God’s “Thank you!”

The writer to Hebrews encourages us with these words, “God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.” (Hebrews 6:10)

So when you are mopping up yet another spilled cup of hurt feelings or repairing yet another hole of misunderstanding, or just setting another table of weekly worship, remember that there were plenty of “in between” days in Jesus’ earthly ministry; it’s quite likely that Jesus learned to clean his room and sweep the stable. If you find yourself in the midst of working on the wall, remember that we are working alongside you – with Him – to build His church, His kingdom. Take heart in that you are not alone, and that God remembers His people!