During the course of our lives we are usually consumed with doing two things, building and fighting.  We build to create better lives for ourselves. We work on making ourselves better people and building our families and friends up. This takes time and effort and LOTS of energy. Building is not something that can be done on the fly and takes time and planning.  Building is a strategic thing, you have to think about location, strengths and weaknesses and many other factors when doing so.  In the midst of building you may also have to fight.   That may sound strange how could the two go together? How can you build and fight at the same time? The book of Nehemiah contains such a historical account where fighting and building happened at the same time. Nehemiah inquired about his homeland and was disturbed to find out that it lay in ruins. The wall was broken and incomplete and its gates were burned. He felt compelled to do something so he appealed to the king to go home and complete the task of rebuilding the wall. In life when you set out to build something you can be assured that there are those watching who do not want to see you complete your task.  Those that heard about the work  tried to discourage Nehemiah’s team and when they could not do that they planned to attack them in the midst of their building.  Normally when you are putting all of your heart and effort into a project and someone comes along to destroy it two things can happen; you will either freeze in the face of fear or you will take up arms to defend the work that you are doing and that is exactly what happened. Nehemiah and those that he encouraged believed that the work that they were doing was the work of God so they continued to build with one hand and with the other hand they took up weapons to fight! Just imagine having to build with one hand and fight with the other. Do you think that you would be ready for this task? If you answered no it’s time to see how much you want what you are building. Is it worth the cost of a fight? Are you prepared to fight for what you believe in?  There may be some work that you have to do to get yourself in shape physically, mentally and spiritually. The most important thing that we must work on is our mindset. Nehemiah 4:6 stated that the people had a mind to work . If your mind is right and the task is of God then nothing can prevent you from doing what you are doing.