Nehemiah 1

When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. (Nehemiah 1:4)

As a generalisation Nehemiah can teach us something prophetically for ourselves, for the church, for what God has called us to. Not least what and where is the brokenness the Lord wants us responding to? The building and the growing of this people of God as a holy people, a people devoted to God and God alone…
We don’t need to look far to see brokenness and for opportunities…perhaps it is we’re praying “Lord show us what you want us to do”, and the Lord is saying… “I am and I have!”

There is something Psalm-like about Nehemiah here in both his response and his prayer. I have attempted to imagine the anguish of Nehemiah and what he was experiencing, what he felt, that would precipitate such a prayer (Nehemiah 1) for a city he had never even been in, people he had probably never met. Because they were God’s people – and knowing something of the redeeming and reconciling heart of God – Nehemiah made it his business. He, “wept, mourned, fasted, prayed”.

However, as desperate as the situation was there was no immediate jump to crying out to God with the calamity, maturity dictates how we come to God and what we say to God, maturity postpones our needs in deference for worship. What we say and the posture we come before God with is determined by how we view God. And when we come before God – and Nehemiah’s prayer is clear on this – we are at the feet of the God of heaven and earth, the king of kings, our great and awesome God, the God for whom all things are possible!

Nehemiah gave prayer priority. Prayer was his strategy.

We don’t need to look far to see brokenness and for opportunities…perhaps it is we’re praying “Lord show us what you want us to do”, and the Lord is saying… “I am and I have!”

Vision starts with God, Vision starts with prayer, Vision responds to people