How to respond when people don't like what you are doing.

Nehemiah 6 Now it happened when Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall, and that there were no breaks left in it (though at that time I had not hung the doors in the gates), 2 that Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come, let us meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono.” But they thought to do me harm.

3 So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?”

4 But they sent me this message four times, and I answered them in the same manner

Here Nehemiah is building the wall.  He is closer than ever to completion when there is an invitation for him to come.  However he discerns that this friendly invitation is with ill intent. 

We must always realize that sometimes even friendly invitations must not be acknowledged.  They are sent by the enemy to do one thing and that is to distract you and hinder you from your purpose. You must be so lead by the Holy Spirit that it isn’t by what the person is saying to you that determines whether or not you trust them but it is by what the spirit of the Lord shows you.

In my own life I have had so many people come my way with “suggestions” on how I should be different honestly if you could name it I have at some point heard it.  Everything from the following:

You look too much like Barbie no one will 
ever take you seriously when you preach.

Women’s ministry would be better at our 
church if you didn’t minister every time.

You say you are girly but you 
don’t wear dresses.

Then I wear dresses and they would 
say your pants are too tight.

Then there is the comments of you are 
too girly so I can’t receive from you.

Your preaching is too practical.  
I need something deeper.

All these suggestions are sent by the enemy to try to distract me from what God has called me to do.  No matter what you are building in life the enemy will send people your way that are friendly…in fact some of these people you may call friends.  They will begin to spew the plan of the enemy into your heart, and if you let it, it will begin to poison your destiny.

I LOVE Nehemiah’s response.  Let’s read that again.

3 So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?”

Man that gets me excited!!!! I long for a people to be so tied to their purpose that they refuse to be distracted by the critics that come their way.  I long for a people to have their identity so deeply embedded in the cross that they are unmoved when things come to oppose what Christ has already settled. 

Each time you fight the critics you loose and they win.  You may have read the above comments and asked what did I say in response. 

I said nothing.  Some were to my face.  Some were via email.  Some were by text.  I never replied.  To reply is to magnify what the enemy has sent in my life to hurt me. 

I love what Nehemiah pens in verse 9:

For they all were trying to make us afraid, saying, “Their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will not be done.”

The things that the enemy sends into your life; the criticism is to make you weakened in the call of God on your life.  If I allowed those words that were spoken I would have looked at my life and questioned the gifting that God had placed inside of me.

God called me as a girly girl and He is going to use me as that girl. 

You don’t have to change to be used.  In fact it is the opposite.  You have to FIGHT to be who you are.

When you begin to change who you are to make others happy that is when the anointing that is on your life becomes tainted, and you begin to live for the applause of many instead of the applause of one  Who is Jesus. 

Criticism has allowed me to learn that it only hurts when it is the areas that I was still yearning for the approval of others.  When you die to the longing for acceptance in that area then you will no longer be troubled when the bad things are said like you used to.  Remember a critic knows how to do one thing: CRITICIZE!!! If you changed what they are complaining about there would always be something else they didn't like.

Daughter can I just tell you that God not only is very proud of you….. He has called you.  Equipped you.  Anointed you for such a time as this and for THIS very occasion.  Don’t change who you are or what you stand for.  The only thing you will ever be good at being is YOU. 

There is a city that is looking to you to do the work the Lord has for you to do.  You don’t have time to respond and get shaken up by the nay sayers.  You just keep building your wall and watch God take care of your enemies!