Power Of The Pivot | Week 3 | Pastor Ben Pierce

Change is one of those things that shows up uninvited. It never asks permission. It does not send a courtesy text. It simply arrives, rolls its sleeves, and rearranges your life. If you are anything like me, you know that feeling. One week, you think you have everything figured out, and the following week, your three-year-old acts like a teenager, or your house goes silent because college called. But change is not just chaos. Change can be God’s agent to cultivate something deeper inside of you. The question is not whether change will come. The question is how you will pivot when it does.

For the last three weeks, we have been discussing navigating change. Today, I want to focus on building faith for what is next. Faith is not passive. It is formed, refined, and carried through disruption. In the story that shaped my thinking, an ordinary man named Nehemiah becomes a remarkable instrument of God when he learns four essential ways to pivot through change.

Why Does Change Not Wait for You

One of the most freeing truths about life is that change does not ask whether you are ready. It will roll into your world anyway. You can resist, ignore, or resent it, but that won’t stop it. What you can do is learn to navigate it. If you accept that inconsistency is part of life, you can stop reacting out of fear and start responding with faith. That response is built, not assumed.

Often, we take change personally. We assume something is wrong with us, or this shift wrecks our carefully constructed schedule and identity. But many times, God uses disruption to bring something new to life in us. The broken walls in our lives can become where God invites us to kneel and let him reconfigure our hearts and our future.

Nehemiah: A Case Study in Pivoting Well

Nehemiah was not a celebrity. He was a cupbearer for the king. That meant he served the wine, tasted it first, and kept the king safe from poison. Not a glamorous job by modern standards, but an important one. Nehemiah was ordinary, yet God used him to do something extraordinary: rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. The walls had been broken for 140 years. No one else had been moved to take action. When Nehemiah got news of the ruins, he wept. That weeping became the starting point for everything that followed.

There is something powerful about a life that allows God to disturb its peace. Nehemiah did not wait for a blueprint. He allowed sorrow, compassion, and a deepening sense of purpose to rearrange his heart. What began as tears became prayer, which became a plan and action. That sequence is not accidental. It is foundational.

Four Principles to Build Faith While You Pivot

When you want to move from surviving change to thriving through it, these four principles will help you pivot well. They are practical, biblical, and the pattern we see in Nehemiah.

1. God Gives a Burden Before He Gives a Blueprint

We often want the plan first, a diagram, a set of instructions, a guaranteed outcome. We want God to hand us the three-ring binder with the steps and the timeline before we are willing to get involved. But God usually gives a burden first. He breaks your heart for something he wants to build, and that broken heart becomes the fuel for action.

“When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.”

That verse is the doorway into Nehemiah’s calling. He did not begin with construction plans. He started with tears. The state of his people emotionally and spiritually moved him. The Hebrew word lev, which means heart, points to where emotions, will, and purpose converge. When God touches your life, he is recalibrating your direction.

Ask yourself: what has made you cry for the kingdom lately? What has stirred compassion inside you for the lost, the broken, the marginalized? That compassion is not accidental. It might be your burden. If you receive the burden, it becomes a holy blueprint generator. It will create motivation that a mere plan cannot produce.

I want to tell you about a man in our congregation who bought property and felt compelled to baptize neighbors in his backyard. He did not start with a marketing team or an event planner. God gave him a burden. He printed flyers and invited people, and now he is getting baptized in more than one church. Why? Because he had the burden, and the burden produced persistent action. The blueprint followed the burden, not the other way around.

2. Pray in Faith While You Work on the Plans

Prayer without action is a ditch. Planning without prayer is another ditch. Faith requires both conversation and preparation. Nehemiah prayed and fasted for months before he stepped into the king’s court. That prayer positioned him to respond rightly when the opportunity arose.

“So I prayed to the God of heaven. Then I said to the king, if it pleases the king, send me to Judah.”

Those few words said to the king were powerful because of the months behind them. Prayer prepares you. Planning equips you. When you balance them, you move from reacting to responding. You become ready for the moment God opens the door.

Faith does not wait for perfect conditions. Noah did not wait for rain before he built the ark. He acted with faith as he obeyed God. That same pattern applies in our lives. If you wait for complete clarity before you step out, you will likely stay in the boat your whole life. Trust God, pray sincerely, and prepare practically.

• Pray for clarity and courage.
• Draft a first plan and then take the first small step.
• Adjust as you go, staying in close conversation with God.

3. Build While You Battle

Nehemiah’s workers built with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other. They did not have the luxury of building in peaceful isolation. They worked under threat, noise, and intimidation. If you want to see God build through you, expect resistance. Battles are part of the process.

We often treat battles like personal failure or as a sign that we are out of God’s favor. That is a mistake. Battles are not a derailment. They are the mechanics’ shop where God shapes endurance, character, and faith. Scripture tells us that the testing of faith produces perseverance that will make us mature and complete. The very hardship that seems to threaten your mission can be the thing that makes you ready for the blessing that follows.

Resistance is a litmus test. The more opposition you face, the more likely you are to build something that matters. Hell does not waste its breath on things that do not threaten its domain. If you are encountering friction, do not be alarmed. Press on. Fight while you build. Carry the materials with one hand and the weapon with the other.

• Expect opposition and name it honestly.
• Remember, the God of heaven will give you success for the burden he has given.
• Use the battle to sharpen your faith rather than to paralyze your progress.

4. Finish What Faith Has Started

Starting is easy. Finishing is hard. Most people are in love with the beginning stages of a project. They enjoy the excitement, the ideas, the energy. But the finish is where the work gets gritty. The final stretch tests whether what began in passion will become legacy.

“So the wall was finished on the 25th day of Elul in fifty two days. When our enemies heard of it they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.”

The builders completed the wall in 52 days. That final result was not simply a testament to human tenacity. It was noticed by the opposition, who understood that something supernatural had done what human hands alone could not. That is the hope for your life. When people reflect on what you have built, they should see God’s fingerprints, not just your hustle.

Finishing requires sustained faith. That faith comes from the burden that started in your heart, the prayer and planning you maintained, and the grit you developed through battle. If you want to finish, you must keep your eyes on why you started, keep your hands on the plow, and keep going even when you are dusty, tired, and tempted to quit.

Practical Steps to Pivot With Faith

It is one thing to talk about faith and change. It is another to do it. Here are practical steps you can take this week to begin pivoting well through the changes in your life.

1. Kneel in the ruins. Literally or figuratively, take time to sit in the broken places of your life and ask God to show you what breaks his heart. Let compassion become your compass.
2. Journal your burden. Write down that weight on your heart and ask God to help you steward it. A burden written becomes a blueprint in time.
3. Pray and plan together. For every step you plan to take, take a step of prayer. If you draft an email, pray over the words; if you plan an event, fast for a day, and ask God for wisdom.
4. Start small and stay consistent. Build momentum with small acts. Invite one person, serve once, and add 15 minutes to your prayer routine. Small, consistent actions compound into lasting change.
5. Expect and name the battle. When resistance comes, identify it and respond with faith. Remind yourself that testing produces perseverance.
6. Finish with testimony. Keep an Ebenezer mindset. Remember how God has helped you thus far and let those memories fuel your movement. Mark milestones publicly to give God the glory and invite the community to celebrate with you.

What You Cannot Take With You

One way to evaluate whether what you are building matters is to ask: Will this last into eternity? Material things will not, titles and trophies will not, and time spent chasing temporary comforts will not count for the kingdom. What matters are souls, transformed lives, compassion shared, and small acts of obedience that point people to Jesus.

I like to poke fun at some of our attachments because humor can clarify truth. For example, you cannot bring your center console through heaven; there will be no golf course in eternity. Those earthly pleasures are fleeting. Ask yourself what you are building that will last. If the answer is fuzzy, consider trading some recreational hours for kingdom labor.

A Church That Pivots Together

This is not only personal. God calls communities to pivot corporately. We, as a church, are not immune to change. Seasons will require sacrifice, prayer, planning, and perseverance. The same four principles apply: let God give you a burden, pray as you plan, build while you battle, and finish what faith starts.

When a community responds in unity to a burden, God multiplies; he is not unjust to forget our labor of love. What we invest in his kingdom will be remembered and rewarded. If you have let your dreams get shelved for safety and comfort, pick them up. Put on your tool belt. Join a team. Start serving. Invite your neighbor to a backyard baptism. Be the person who becomes a doorway to someone else finding the way back to God.

Personal Reflection Questions

Here are some questions to help you discern what God might be calling you to at this season:

• What breaks your heart when you look around your city, workplace, or family?
• What burden have you been avoiding because it feels too big?
• Where could you take one small step of faith this week?
• What plans are you holding back from God because you want the blueprint first?
• What battles do you need to embrace rather than avoid?
• Who around you can testify that God has done something through you?

Scripture to Anchor Your Pivot

These verses shaped the message and will anchor your faith:

• Nehemiah 1:3: a burden that led to lament, prayer, and fasting.
• Nehemiah 2:4: prayer in the moment because prayer had been practiced for months.
• Nehemiah 4:1-17: building with one hand and defending with the other.
• Nehemiah 6:15: The wall was finished in 52 days and recognized as God’s work.
• Proverbs 16:3: Commit your plans to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.
• 2 Corinthians: live by faith, not by sight.
• James 2:26: faith without works is dead.
• James 1:3: The testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Rise from the Ruins: God’s Invitation to Rebuild

If you are reading these words and thinking, I used to dream. I used to feel God stir me. Those dreams did not have to be traded in for safe mediocrity. This is your Nehemiah moment. Kneel in the ruins. Ask God to plant a burden. Let that burden produce a blueprint. Pray as you plan. Fight while you build and do not give up when the dust gets thick. Finish what faith has started.

When God helps you, your life becomes an Ebenezer for someone else. Thus far, the Lord has helped you. He will get you there. There are moments in life that define generations. I believe we are here for such a moment. Individually and collectively, we can rebuild our neighborhoods, families, and city. We can take what is broken and let God make it whole.

Take one or two concrete steps today:

1. Pray for one person to be saved and take a step to invite them to a faith conversation or an event.
2. Sign up to serve somewhere this month. Serving trains your hands to build and mature your heart.
3. Find a trusted friend and share the burden God has placed on your heart. Ask them to pray and hold you accountable.
4. Remember, has God helped you before? Mark that memory and let it encourage you to keep going.

Do not let the next 140 years pass you by while you stand in the ruins. Let God disturb your world to rebuild your heart and use you to rebuild others. Let your life be more than survival. Let it be a legacy for the kingdom.

If you are ready, kneel in that place right now, ask God to give you a burden that aligns with his heart, and then take a small practical step this week toward that burden. Pray, plan, build, battle, and finish. Let the God of heaven get the glory.