Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for the daily challenges.  This week’s topic is part of our series called EPIC where we’ve been exploring how Jesus is found throughout the Old Testament part of the Bible. We’re reading some epic old stories from the Old Testament, some of which you might have heard before, some of which might be new to you. But our hope is that in each of them we’ll see how they’re part of one big epic story: the story of the Bible, the story of the world, God’s story.

Our daily challenges are meant to help you explore what it means to follow Jesus, even if you don’t have a lot of time. That’s why we have a rhythm that keeps us in sync, even if we’re not a community that meets together in person regularly. This means every Monday we introduce the week’s idea. Every Tuesday we study it in the Bible. Every Wednesday we see how that challenges and transforms our thinking on the topic. Thursdays we try to apply and live it out. Friday is a day for prayer and reflection before we take a rest on Saturday, and Sundays we meet together with other Christians in community.

Every day, I drive by a major construction zone, where they are building a brand new highway and connecting it to North America’s busiest highway.

Some days I can see progress being made – a new delivery of gravel piled high, or a new span of a bridge got dropped into place overnight.

But other days, it seems like nothing changes.  New utility poles went up months ago, and one or two power lines, but now they’re just sitting there, still connected to their spools, not connected to the grid at all.  I have no idea why!

Thankfully a neighbour of mine works in this industry, and answered all sorts of these questions for me a few months ago.  The long gaps in construction have to do with regulations about everything from the environment, to traffic flow.  There are restrictions on what kinds of work can take place at what hours, and what times of year, sometimes even depending on what type of fish are spawning in the rivers below.

I realized there is so much more complexity to these projects than we can appreciate by simply driving by.  As taxpayers we might lke to gripe about the seeming inefficiency of it all, but I was impressed by the intelligence and planning that goes into these seemingly haphazard events.

This week we’ll hear the story of Nehemiah, a man tasked with rebuilding Jerusalem, a huge undertaking.  This was all part of God’s plan to restore his relationship with humanity.

Question: What is the biggest project you’ve undertaken?