Are You a Nehemiah? Part II

"So I prayed to the God of heaven" (Nehemiah 2:4b NASB). This was the response of Nehemiah after King Artaxerxes asked him what he would like to have done regarding the desolation of his homeland, Jerusalem. At first glance this seems like a very nonchalant response. Nehemiah prayed. What's the big deal? After all, most of us would do the same would we not? What is interesting is not that Nehemiah prayed, rather it is how he prayed.

As we saw in the previous post, Nehemiah lived during the time of Israel's captivity in Babylon. This captivity followed the deportation and exile of the Jew's from the ancient Kingdom of Judah in 586 BC. As a part of this watershed event in Jewish history the great city of Jerusalem was sacked, walls burned, and laid in ruin. When word of this finally reached Nehemiah the Scripture tells us that he was deeply grieved, burdened, and began to pray:

I beseech You, O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I am praying before You now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against You; I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against You and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which You commanded Your servant Moses, saying, 'If you are unfaithful I will scatter you among the peoples; but if you return to Me and keep My commandments and do them, though those of you who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause My name to dwell.' They are Your servants and Your people whom You redeemed by Your great power and by Your strong hand. O Lord, I beseech You, may Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayer of Your servants who delight to revere Your name, and make Your servant successful today and grant him compassion before this man. (Neh. 1:5-11 NASB)

Now there are many things we can learn from Nehemiah's prayer. However, for the sake of brevity allow me to share just a few quick things.

First, notice that Nehemiah did not just pray once, but "day and night". So many times we may become discouraged that our prayers are never answered in the manner we feel they should be. Much of this may be the result of a lack of persistence in our praying. Jesus addressed this when He instructed his followers to "ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you (Mat. 7:7 ESV). In the original language (Greek) the verbs "ask", "seek", and "knock" are in the continuous action tense. This means the words are better translated, ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking. What Jesus was teaching here is persistence in prayer. Let us be clear, Jesus is not suggesting that if we bug God enough He will eventually just give in and give us what we want. What He is teaching is that there is mysteriously a correlation between our passionate persistence and fervency in prayer and God's answering. Nehemiah was determined to continue to approach God until he received an answer. I'm confident we would find much clearer and satisfying answers to our prayers if we learn to pray in this manner.

A second thing we should notice in Nehemiah's prayer is his obvious contrition. If you are like me then you find yourself often times developing a pattern of prayer that could be described more as selfish as opposed to submissive. It is easy for us to treat God like some sort of a cosmic grandparent (meaning we expect He should give us just about anything we ask for). When we do this we have sinned against God because we have in effect committed idolatry. That is, we have worshipped the god we have created in our own minds rather than the one true God revealed to us in the Bible. To the contrary, Nehemiah clarified in his prayer just who this God was he was praying to, "O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments..." Obviously Nehemiah understood that God is greater than him and sovereign over him thus he submitted to him. This I believe is the starting point of contrition. For Nehemiah prayer was not just about what God could do for him, but more so how Nehemiah could serve God.

Nehemiah was truly broken hearted and repentant over his sin and the sin of his people. He confessed those sins to God and then pleaded with God to keep His promises to His people. Nehemiah was not asking for God to simply give him what he wanted. He was asking for God to allow him to be a part of accomplishing what God wanted. The Scripture does not expressly tell us that God told Nehemiah that He wanted him to be the one to go back to Jerusalem and lead the effort to rebuild the city. However, it is implied in Nehemiah's answering of King Artaxerxes, "if it please the king, and if your servant has found favor before you, send ME to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may rebuild it." Through Nehemiah's persistent prayer and contrite heart God shaped Nehemiah's perspective and desire to be willing to walk through the door He provided. Nehemiah went on to be the successful leader he became largely because of how he prayed. Are you a Nehemiah?