S154P6 – Sincerity in prayer: Nehemiah
Neh. 1:8-11
“Remember the word that 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 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.’ They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O 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.” Now I was cupbearer to the king.
Although our prayers are to come from our hearts, we speak them with words. It can be challenging for anyone praying in a group for the first time to be comfortable because they want to say the right words. This is not necessarily the case only when we pray before others. This can be the case when we pray alone as well. Sometimes we do not know whether what we want to ask for is what we should ask for. Other times we simply do not know what to say to the Lord. We just know that we need him. In those times, it might help to do what Nehemiah did here. It is what we can see many others do in the scriptures as well. They simply prayed the words of God.
Some might read the words of Nehemiah here and think that he was holding God to his promise. They might see it as him holding God accountable, but there is a grave problem with that perspective. None of us have the authority or the need to hold God accountable. He is not a man that He should lie or forget. What Nehemiah did here was simply agree with what the Lord had said already. He was asking for God to let him see the fulfillment of this promise because what he saw indicated that it was time. Nehemiah recognized that this remnant existed only because God had kept them, and he prayed to have a hand in their success because it was what he expected from God’s own words.
You can almost see the gears turning in Nehemiah’s head in the previous verses. He was in a position of influence to help those who had escaped exile, and he recognized that right away. It is akin to Esther being in the king’s court at just the right time. Nehemiah was prepared to pray God’s own words only because he knew them. That is the lesson for us today. We can pray according to God’s promises and everything He ever said about himself, but we can do that only if we hold those words in our hearts and minds. Father, help us not only to remember your words but to write them on our hearts, and remind us of those words when we are in prayer.