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Nehemiah
I love that book of the Bible. So rich and full of biblical principles on leadership, accountability, warfare, etc. One of my favorite biblical principles comes out of Nehemiah 2:1-5.
Nehemiah 2:1-4 (ESV)
In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. And the king said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.” Then I was very much afraid. I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?” Then the king said to me, “What are you requesting?” So, I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ graves, that I may rebuild it.”
Did you catch that little sentence? So, I prayed to the God of heaven.
Nehemiah is standing before the king that he is the cupbearer to. Their relationship is obviously close enough that the King realizes Nehemiah is struggling in his spirit with something. The king asked him what’s up? (paraphrased). In that instance, in that millimeter of a second, Nehemiah in his mind looked to God and prayed. He didn’t fall on his knees, he didn’t run to the prayer room, he didn’t call others for prayer, he went to God immediately and only God knows what he prayed but this we know, it wasn’t a dissertation. It was short, sweet, sincere, believing by faith God was listening. And then he addressed the king. In real life time I suspect there was hardly a pause between what the king asked and his response. Yet, in-between that pause Nehemiah ran to the throne room.
I am trying to apply this principle to my life daily. And the more I desire to apply it, the more I recognize the times I don’t. Ugh!!
Can I encourage all of us to take time to pause, to run to the throne room before we speak or engage in actions that could have been handled differently, if we had just looked to Him even for a second. Just enough to change our focus so we could deal with it through His eyes.
By the way, it was amazing to read the rest of Chapter 2 of Nehemiah to see the king’s graciousness to him. May we know His graciousness as we look toward Him increasingly more!
His,
Vickie
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