“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Mahtama Gandhi

I’ll admit to not being a big Gandhi fan, but he hit the nail on the head with this one. I’ll add the caveat that your cause must be righteous. And, by that measurement, I only know of one kind of cause that is truly righteous and that is the cause of Christ.

If you are doing the work of God, you will endure each of these steps. The key is to remember that the last step is coming. It may be delayed, but it’s never cancelled.

I thought of this quote after reading about Nehemiah’s struggle to get the returning Israelites to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. The nearby neighbors never thought twice about Jerusalem and so, weren’t worried when they returned home. Then, when they heard that the wall was being rebuilt, they mocked them and threatened them. They even tried to make the case that Jerusalem was preparing for rebellion. At each of these steps, the people had the choice to give up. They could have laid down their tools and simply lived in the broken down city they had returned to, which would have been exactly what their enemies wanted.

No, Nehemiah rallied them and they stuck to it.

“So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.” Nehemiah 6:15-16

You see? There’s step four: then you win.

If you think about it, Noah went through the same process. It’s a model to follow whenever God is leading you to do something that seems out of the ordinary or defies human logic. Simply follow Him and watch the steps happen.

Don’t forget that in the end, when you follow Him, you win.