P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

DIGGING DIRT

During wartime, there’s a form of torture that has proven very effective. It happens when a prisoner of war is commanded to dig a deep hole. Upon completion, when the prisoner is reveling in the satisfaction of a job well done, he is commanded to fill it in and start digging another hole just like it twenty feet away. When he’s done with the second hole he is forced to fill it in and start digging another one. And so it goes: hole after hole.
At first glance, you might think of this form of punishment as humane. It’s certainly better than the prisoner mistreatment that stunned the world at Abu Ghraib, right? After all, if the prisoner is just digging dirt, he is not abused or starved or intimidated at gunpoint. Usually he’s getting good exercise and sleeping full nights; yet psychologists tell us that it is one of the most effective ways to drive a person clinically insane.
Why?

You and I both know it is because the work serves no purpose. Tell that same prisoner to dig a 5-mile trench in order to move sewage away from an orphanage, and he could work for months or years to achieve that objective without going crazy. But to simply move dirt piles with no meaningful end in mind . . . well . . . turns out that is torture in the highest order.

Deep within every human spirit burns the desire to make a difference. We want to live with a purpose.

Mark Twain offered this melancholy viewpoint on life and death:

A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle; . . . they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps up on them; infirmities follow; . . . those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. [Death] comes at last--the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them--and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence, . . . a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.

When your life is over, will you vanish with no consequence? Will people lament you for a day and forget you forever? Will you fritter your life away by moving dirt?

Or will you change the world with your life? You can, you know. How? To answer that question, let’s consider the life of a man named Nehemiah who made a significant difference in the history of God’s people. From his life, we see three steps to help us live with purpose.

The first step is to follow your calling. After Jerusalem had suffered nearly 150 years of captivity and plunder, God called Nehemiah to pick up a shovel and go rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Nehemiah’s brother reported about chaos and confusion in Jerusalem. He told of how those who survived the exile were in “great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire” (Nehemiah 1:3). Hearing this report, Nehemiah sensed God calling him to do something about the situation.

So it is with every high-impact player who makes a difference; it starts with a calling. If you want to make difference and fulfill a noble purpose, then you must follow your calling. Nehemiah was so captured by his calling that he could not eat or sleep. In verse 4 he says, “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.”

When is the last time you were so moved by your mission that you broke down and cried? It’s a rare person who is propelled by that kind of clear purpose. Many people seem hardly alive at all. In the words of C. S. Lewis, “Our age is marked by moderate vice and moderate virtue.” It’s not that we are so evil, but that we are so dead. The sizzle of the soul is too easily extinguished.

Study the story of any high-impact player, past or present, and you will uncover a sense of mission that fueled that individual to greatness. Take, for example, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Watch a video of him proclaiming, “I have a dream . . .” and you will see much more than a man delivering a message, you will see a missionary proclaiming his mission. To Dr. King, confronting racism was not a career, it was his calling.

There is something mysterious, almost magical, about a man or a woman on a mission. These mavericks are not content to move dirt; they must make a difference.

Now this is not to suggest that there is no fear involved. Whenever you get serious about pursuing your passion, there will be fear. If your calling doesn’t scare you, then expand your dream. When your mission is so big that it terrifies you, then you’re ready for the second step.

Swallow your fear. Nehemiah was apprehensive. He wrote:

I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?" The king said to me, "What is it you want?" Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king, "If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it" (Nehemiah 2:2-5).

Even though Nehemiah was afraid, he did not ditch his dream. Instead, he swallowed his fear and asked for permission from the king to pursue his mission. That’s a good course of action since our fears are often irrational. I once read a survey that said the number one fear people have is public speaking. The second greatest fear is (are you ready for this?) . . . death. This comes to mind when I officiate at funerals. It seems strange that most people would rather be in the casket than standing where I am. Does that make any sense?

On our broadcast last Monday we addressed the topic of fear. I encourage you to visit our website at VOP.COM and review the principles that we learned the other day about handling fear.

In spite of his fears, Nehemiah persisted. This leads us to the final step in crafting a life that matters.

Persevere! Rebuilding the wall was no easy undertaking for Nehemiah. Instead, construction was met with bitter resistance.

Sanballat, a Horonite, and Tobiah, an Ammonite, mocked his efforts. They claimed the Jews to be so shoddy in their workmanship that “if even a fox climbed up on it, he would break down their wall of stones!” (Nehemiah 4:3). Not only did Nehemiah encounter great external opposition but internal harmony began to erode as well. Nehemiah’s own people joined in the chorus of complaint. “Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, `The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall’” (Nehemiah 4:10). Essentially they were moaning, “We’re just moving dirt piles. We can’t pull this off. What difference are we making?”

The next chapter describes how the affluent people were profiteering off their laboring countrymen. So Nehemiah confronts the extortion.

Then Sanballat and Tobiah tried new and innovative ways to throttle the project. Nehemiah writes: “. . . they were scheming to harm me; so I sent messengers to them with this reply: ‘I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down.’ ” Nehemiah is too focused on his calling to be distracted. He continues: “ ‘Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?’ Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer” (Nehemiah 6:2-4).

If you’re serious about leveraging your life for maximum impact, then you’ll have to persevere. George and Alec Gallup, the famous pollsters, conducted some of the most extensive research on the qualities of success. The two men invested thousands of hours interviewing successful people in search of the common factors among them.

Talking with high achievers in business, the arts, literature, religion, the military, and so on, they asked questions about family background, personality, hobbies, personal values, and education. They published the results in a book called The Great American Success Story.

The common denominator among the thousands of successful people was not extraordinary talent, or lucky breaks, or wealth. It was much simpler: hard work.

The common thread that ran consistently through the stories was perseverance. No shortcuts. No simple ride. No tricks.

Success came to those willing to pay the price of hard work. The harvest of success had a direct relationship to the seeds of hard work planted. The researchers concluded: “So what we have here is an affirmation of the old-fashioned American credo that hard work and determination pay off.”

Sorry, there’s no magic bullet here. If you want to be successful and live on purpose, you must work hard and persevere.

Back to Nehemiah’s story:

So the wall was completed…in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God (Nehemiah 6:15-16).

In only 52 days God’s people were elevated to an enviable position of power and respect among all nations. Nehemiah changed the world. He made a difference.
You can too! How? Follow your calling. Swallow your fear. Persevere! Your life can have purpose. Don’t waste it moving dirt piles. Rather, make a difference. And while you’re at it . . . change the world.