By Elliot Ritzema
Nehemiah had a good life in the Persian city of Susa. He was cupbearer to King Artaxerxes I, which was a prestigious role in the court. And yet, while the people in Jerusalem who had survived the Babylonian exile were far away and out of sight, their suffering pierced his heart. It worked its way into his comfortable life and became his suffering.
The events of chapter 2 took place in the month of Nisan, four months after Nehemiah was told about the situation in Jerusalem. In the intervening time, Nehemiah had no doubt been continuing to pray and fast, and eventually the king took notice of his anguished appearance.
It must have been terrifying to be called out by the king. After all, Artaxerxes was the monarch who had already commanded that work on rebuilding Jerusalem be stopped several years before (Ezra 4:21). Nehemiah’s request to be allowed to go to Jerusalem amounted to asking Artaxerxes to reverse his earlier decision. Shrewdly, Nehemiah kept the request personal, not mentioning the previous decree or referring to Jerusalem by name, but instead called it “the city where my ancestors are buried” (Nehemiah 2:3,5).
Here we see that Nehemiah was a man of both prayer and action. He spent four months in prayer and prayed even while he was speaking with the king. This is what gave him the courage and awareness not only to ask the king to let him go but to make the additional request for letters of safe passage and for building materials. Clearly, in his time of prayer, he had been making plans for what he would need to do should God grant him favor with the king.
But God’s granting his prayer to be allowed to go to Jerusalem to help rebuild did not mean that all opposition was cleared away. Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite were “greatly displeased” by this development. They probably saw Nehemiah as a threat to their power in the region; a work of God often encounters hostility from forces who benefit from the status quo.
In a sermon on this passage, the great English preacher John Stott said, “It’s not enough to be a dreamer and a visionary. The dreamer has to become a thinker and a planner and a worker. People of vision need to become people of action.” At the same time, for courageous action to be meaningful—for it to bear fruit in the kingdom of God and not merely build our own kingdoms—it needs to always be wedded to prayer, as Nehemiah’s was.
Beyond that, both our dreams and our actions must be for others. When God reveals to us His great love for people, He invites us to join him in sharing that love. When we allow the needs of others into our comfortable lives, they turn into a call to take risks for God. As we take prayer-discerned obedient steps we can be confident that God’s gracious hand will be on us.
Post Comments (0)