As you start maturing and taking on more responsibility, you’ll find yourself busy with important work. Leading your family, educating your kids, building a business, or simply the many tasks of maintenance that can fill your life that can’t be ignored.
A man engaged in important work is a man growing in gravitas. The world warps and shapes around him like a stream flowing around a rock. He attracts things into his orbit. Much of what he attracts will be good.
But he’ll also attract pests and scavengers and fools. It’s inevitable. They come in the form of discouragers, hecklers, or people who say they want to help but really just want to mooch off of others. Or vultures who slobber in anticipation of another corpse, feeding off the failures of better men.
He must deal with these problems, but if he’s not careful, he can become distracted from the main work. Dealing with pest control takes up all his time, and he forgets that he still needs to weed and feed his garden.
If you find yourself in this situation, look to the example of Nehemiah, whose story is found in the Bible in the book that bears his name.
Nehemiah came to Jerusalem for one primary purpose. To rebuild the walls of the city. The work had stalled for many reasons, but Nehemiah was there to cut through the excuses and get the work started again.
He succeeds. The walls are going up.
Then along comes Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem, three stooges who deserved one another, to mock their work while scheming to stop the work.
Sanballat asks a question. “What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”
Nehemiah replies, “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem.”
Notice how this doesn’t answer Sanballat’s question. Nehemiah ignores it. He knows the question was not asked in good faith but asked by an enemy who wants to accuse him and discourage him.
So Nehemiah cuts to the heart of the matter. He knew the real intent behind the question and so refused to answer it, much like Jesus refused to answer his enemies later on (Matthew 27:12-14, Luke 20:1-8).
He refused to answer the fool according to his folly (Proverbs 26:4). Sanballat didn’t deserve a good-faith response, and it wouldn’t have changed anything if he had received one.
For many fools, this will be enough. They will search for easier prey, naive, or other fools to console them. But some fools, especially malicious ones, will hang around like flies attracted to honey instead of dung. As the breaches in the walls continued to close, Sanballat got angrier and plotted an outright attack.
Nehemiah organized guards to protect the people day and night. The work continued. The wall gets finished, though the gates still need their doors.
Sanballat sends a message to Nehemiah asking him to meet together and chat. What about? Who knows? Nehemiah didn’t care.
“I am doing a great work,” Nehemiah said. “Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?”
Next, Sanballat sends a veiled threat. An underhanded accusation. He claimed Nehemiah was rebuilding the wall because the Jews intended to rebel and make Nehemiah their king. Sanballat pretends to be an ally, warning Nehemiah that the Persian King might hear these plans. “So now come and let us take counsel together.”
Nehemiah does not try to argue or reason with Sanballat. He only says, “No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.”
Some quick lessons we can learn from this:
You don’t owe everyone an answer, especially on social media. It’s ok to ignore a lot of people. You also don’t have to have an opinion about everything.
Don’t waste time engaging with bad-faith people. It can take some discernment to learn who these people are, but they become easier to spot.
Live with integrity so you can laugh at the threats of accusations from losers like Sanballat. A person with a guilty conscience would have been much easier for Sanballat to control or derail.
Keep working. Keep focused on your mission (here is a good primer on establishing a mission).
And do not answer a fool according to his folly.