So there are many situations in life which can burn us, situations of grief and loss, betrayal, people judge us. There are many experiences where you can get burnt. Here's the thing: if you don't deal with getting burnt, what will happen is, you'll crumple, and then get dislodged out of what God called you to be and to do. This is where the dilemma lies, and I've seen over the years, hundreds of Christians dislodged when they got burnt; so God's got a plan for burnt stones. His plan is to revive them, and restore them, get them back in position again.
Okay, a third way is through broken promises and dreams, when our dreams are shattered. Now there's many reasons that that may happen. It could be just simply that we were believing God for something, like a healing, and it didn't happen; we believe in God for a marriage, and it still broke down; we believe in God for a child ,and they got worse, their situation got worse. Broken dreams, where God doesn't come through the way we expect Him to, can be a cause of many believers getting burnt. They get offended, and an offended person is a burnt stone. An offended believer is a burnt stone, blackened and charred by the experience they've been through, crumbling, and about to be dislodged.
So these are some of the things, and sometimes God has a good idea of just allowing us to go through a fire. Have a think about Job - where did the idea come from to let Job go through a bit of a fire? Well Job went through a fire, but at the end of it he came out, and he came to twice the blessing - he came to an expanded positioning. He came to twice the blessing he had before, because he handled the fire right. Think about Joseph. Joseph went through a fiery trial. He went through a betrayal by his brothers, he went through imprisonment, he went through false accusations and judgements against him. He went through a season of delay, when God didn't answer his prayers. He went through a whole range of things, but when he came out, he came out and was positioned, and he wasn't a burnt stone. He was a living stone. He was a living stone, because in the middle of it all, the Bible says in Psalm 106:19, it tells us: the word of the Lord tried him, until the time for all the promise for be fulfilled, and then that word released him into his promise. So he never let go of his trust in God, no matter what external circumstances. He never allowed what was around him, to scorch him and burn him. He never held offence, never held bitterness, never held judgement, never held things that would hold him back. So when he came out he was able to say to his brothers: it wasn't you sent me there, it was God sent me there. Don't blame yourselves. His heart was expanded by his fiery experience. He was not a burnt stone at all!
So let's go back into Nehemiah. I want you to have a look in Nehemiah, Chapter 1. I want to share with you something there about God's heart for burnt stones, because right now, you might be a burnt stone yourself. I was thinking God, is that me, a burnt stone? I'm thinking: flip, I can smell smoke. That's not me! We always think it's the other person that's burning don't we? Turns out it was us! Nehemiah 1:3, he got a message. Nehemiah got a message, and it said that we're in distress and reproach, Verse 3. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, the gates burned with fire. When I heard these words, I sat down, wept and mourned for many days, and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. So notice here, Nehemiah means: Comfort of God. Nehemiah is a picture of the Holy Spirit, and Nehemiah has a burden, when he hears there's burnt stones and broken walls. The heart of God is to restore. God sees what you could be. He sees the possibility in a burnt stone. Someone else sees just a drug addict, someone else sees just a prostitute, someone said: it's a no-hoper. God says: I just see a burnt stone, and I can fix up the burnt stone. I can put it back into the wall of destiny, and I can give it significance and purpose! God is like that, so Nehemiah, who is a picture of the Holy Spirit, who carries the heart of God, grieved - grieved over burnt stones.