You’re Not at Risk

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If Nehemiah isn’t one of your heroes of the faith, maybe it’s time to reconsider. His was a life of severe restriction, a life he didn’t sign up for. Then came bad news (Neh. 1:1-3).

Those he loved were languishing and what he relished was laying in ruin. He could have said, “After all, what can I do?” Maybe you’ve said it. But he didn’t.

Study Nehemiah and you’ll discover he spent time with God. That, he could do. And that decision affected outcomes that seemed way beyond his control.

When he was presented with bad news, he converted it to a God-born burden that moved him from merely seeing the need to spending time on his knees (v. 4-11).

Experience teaches us that we don’t know when some problem will come, we just know they will come.

But when they do, we can be confident that burdens are really blessings in disguise (Rom. 5:1-5).

Nehemiah didn’t say, “someone do something.” He did something. And it started with God empowered effort that every one of us can harness – we call it prayer.

It makes us proactive instead of reactive. Building a walk with God now will prepare you to turn to Jesus instinctively when problems “just show up”.

Every follower of Jesus eventually learns that our effort will be inefficient and ineffective if it doesn’t begin in effectual prayer (James 5:16). Nehemiah is a great example.

Two quotes that have me thinking and worth keeping (and sharing!): 

“When we rely on organization, we get what organization can do; when we rely on education, we get what education can do; when we rely on eloquence, we get what eloquence can do; and so on. I am not disposed to undervalue any of these things in their proper place—BUT when we rely on prayer, we get what God can do.” A.C. Dixon

“[Nehemiah] knows that the self-sufficient do not pray, they merely talk to themselves. The self-satisfied will not pray; they have no knowledge of their need. The self-righteous cannot pray; they have no basis on which to approach God." Cyril Barber

Nehemiah was restricted and lived in servitude. But none of his circumstances could keep him from praying. They cannot keep you and me from praying either.

None of us is really at risk of praying too much, right?

If you know the rest of Nehemiah’s story, you know the power of ordinary people who pray. It affects outcomes and helps us discover that burdens are blessings in disguise.

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TRIVIA QUESTION:

When Jeremiah was in the “pit” who gave him a lift? (I’ll give a shoutout to those who answer correctly in the next newsletter.)

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