4As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. 5And I said, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. 7We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. 8Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, 9but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ 10They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. 11O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.”
Consider the brokenness you heard about, how would you pray?
Share it with your friends
Nehemiah clearly has a deep sense of personal concern. He is willing to face the facts, to weep over them and tell God about them. That is always the place to begin. There is nothing superficial about this. A famous song says, Don’t worry, Be happy. But that is mere salve over a deep cancer. What is needed is to honestly face the ruin, whatever it may be, and, without blaming or attempting to involve somebody else, telling it all to God. God always welcomes a broken spirit and a contrite heart.
Follow the pattern of Nehemiah’s prayer. First, he recognized the character of God. The ruin you are concerned with may not always be yours personally. You feel like Nehemiah, and you want to weep and mourn and tell God about it. That is always the place to start, for God is a responsive God. He gives attention to the prayers of His people.
The second thing Nehemiah did was to repent of all personal and corporate sins. This was honestly facing his own guilt. Notice the absence of self-righteousness. He did not say, Lord, I am thinking of those terrible sinners back there in Jerusalem. Be gracious to them because they have fallen into wrong actions. No, he put himself into this picture, saying, I confess before you, Lord, the sins of myself and my father’s house. There was no attempt to blame others for this. It was a simple acknowledgment of wrong.
Then, third, Nehemiah reminded God of His gracious promises. In the book of Deuteronomy 28-30 Moses prophetically outlines the entire history of Israel. He said they would disobey God; they would be scattered among the nations; they would go into exile. But if they would turn and acknowledge their evil, God would bring them back to the land. Nehemiah reminded God of that gracious promise.
The fourth thing Nehemiah did was request specific help to begin this process. It was not going to be easy, but he knew what he had to do. It was going to take the authority of the top power in the whole empire. That was not easy to arrange. But Nehemiah believed that God would help him. And so he started to pray and asked for grace and strength to carry out the steps that were necessary to begin recovery.
Are we experiencing the healing power of contrite repentance? Do we acknowledge the effects of our sins on others’ lives?
I think I would follow Nehemiah’s lead; he openly recognizes the failures and shortcomings of his people. By openly admitting their sins, Nehemiah demonstrates humility and an awareness of how to improve and move forward. I also would follow Nehemiah’s example. He prays big and specific. But this just shows how great Nehemiah’s faith is and how strong his convictions are.
We did this devotion in our leaders meeting and one thing that stood out to me was how Nehemiah used the word of God when he prayed. He quoted the God’s word as he sought for God’s mercy. Considering the brokenness I hear about, I hope to be able to cry out to God as Nehemiah did. The first person he came to when he heard the news was God. He mourned, he wept, he fasted, and prayed. He acknowledged God’s greatness and asked for the Lord to hear him. He confessed his own sin and brokenness and then used God’s word as he begged for His mercy.
From our brother Anthony’s post:
In continuation with my thought on justifying our actions. I believe this passage refers to as acknowledging that that our current lives have sin and understanding that we can move forward by accepting it, praying for the forgiveness and correcting our lives from this point on because God is forgiving and merciful.
A lot can be said about fasting and praying, but as far as reasons why to fast&pray, Nehemiah fasted and prayed as an act of repentance, lamenting and also to seek direction/guidance/wisdom on the action that God wanted him to take.
I would pray in the same way as Kevin! It’s hard to acknowledge sin sometimes, and it can lead to a rabbit hole of even more sin if not acknowledged. After hearing of the brokenness and thinking more on it, I feel I had been selfish and perhaps prayed for others without completely repenting for my own sin.
In reading the devotional, I saw how much my heart didn’t break for my community. Upon hearing the words, Nehemiah weeps, fasts, and prays for days. I might weep and pray here and there but I’ve never fasted for my community. There is a desperation in Nehemiah for his community. There is a desperation to call upon God and tell Him that change needs to happen. There is also such a desire to uphold God’s laws and commandments. There’s no contentment in sin. God I pray that we will desire to see change in our community like Nehemiah and that we will not be content in our sinfulness but strive to be obedient living sacrifices to You.
It’s one thing to be disturbed over what we see, it’s quite another to cry out from repentant hearts as Nehemiah did. Nehemiah holds a very well paying position in the palace, he doesn’t need to worry about problems that are thousand miles away in Jerusalem yet he wanted to make it his problem. Do we feel sympathy for the problems around us? At work at school or at home. Are we willing to risk our position, comfort, convenience and security to get involved? There’s much we cannot do. But there is one thing we can do. We can pray. And that is one thing we must do. Like Nehemiah he lifted up his eyes to heaven and seek wisdom from above.
Someone in our group shared:
Sometimes when I read these passages, it goes over my head so I have to read it like three more times to try and understand it. I like how Nehemiah acknowledges God and takes responsibility for people of Israels sins as well as his own. He acknowledges that he hasnt kept the commandments as well as the statutes. Some people including myself are unaware of sin, but you can see here that Nehemiah is full aware and once you acknowledge and accept your place, you can take the next step of change. Another thing I can note here is that prayer is extremely important not just in times like walls being destroyed but also in times of celebration. You see Nehemiah relying on God and I believe I must do the same especially in tough times as well. We dont deserve God’s mercy, yet He gives it to us. It’s something I will truly never understand but thats grace undeserving. If i’m being honest, even after hearing the brokeness, I personally would not react or fall on my knees to pray so Lord after realizing this, I pray that you soften my heart and unleash my numbness to injustice in this world as well as the brokenness. Give me a deep sense of care and love for Your people. Amen.
Considering the brokenness, I would repent and acknowledge how powerful God is and how weak I am. Only through the realizations of our weaknesses can we know God’s grace is sufficient. Nehemiah’s prayer routine started out by acknowledging God’s character before all other requests and himself since God is the main character in every story, not us.
I would pray to recognize God’s power and grace in restoration and repent as not only individually but also community of God, lifting up other people’s struggles
I would pray by acknowledging my sins and repenting to God. And it’s shown by Nehemiah in verses 6 and 7.
O Lord,
You are the great and awesome God. There are much brokenness around us. Many relationships were destroyed because we have sinned against you. We all have acted very corruptly and have not kept the commandments. We believe if we’re are unfaithful, we will be scattered. If we return to you and keep your commandments, you will gather us and bring us to the place that You have chosen.
Lord, let your ear be attentive to our prayers and grant us mercy so we can be reunited and healed-up. We pray in Jesus-name.
Amen