Worship Takes Work

Nehemiah knew that the wall wouldn’t come together on its own. With singular focus, he inspected the city (Nehemiah 1:9-20). He assembled the people. He assigned a section to every family (Nehemiah 2:1-32).

He built the wall through strenuous, faith-filled effort.

Now that the wall was up, it was time to worship with joy. But the lead builder knew that this, too, wouldn’t happen by accident. In his mind, gladness in God was a grand undertaking. So he transferred his grueling labor away from the wall and toward worship.

“And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites in all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with thanksgivings and with singing, with cymbals, harps, and lyres … Then I brought the leaders of Judah up onto the wall and appointed two great choirs that gave thanks.” (Nehemiah 12:27, 31)

This was intuitive for Nehemiah: worship would take work.

He believed that rejoicing in God required the same level of detail as reconstructing the gates.

And because he put in the work, Jerusalem’s joy went up like their newly built walls.

“And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the woman and children also rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away.” (Nehemiah 12:43)

Are you putting in the painstaking work of preparing for praise? Or are you spending all your effort on the wall and assuming that worship should come easy?

Jesus climbed up mountains to have time in prayer.

He said “No” to bread for forty days.

He stayed up all night and rose early in the morning to seek blessings from above.

He didn’t give God the leftovers after serving the crowds. He went to the Father first—and then ministered in the overflow.

Intimacy with Jesus doesn’t happen by accident. Gladness in God is a grand undertaking. It takes work to prepare your mind, to clear space for prayer, and to remain with Jesus through the resistance of the flesh.

Piecemeal devotion leads to division in the heart and chaos in the soul. When your praise is dim and dull, you have been giving your primary attention to the outer wall of public perception.

Take the care, zeal, and attention to detail you are bringing to your visible service—and double it for the secret place. Walls of solid joy come from the daily work of steadfast worship that no one sees.