let Your eyes be open

My friend and cubicle-mate has been gracious enough to let me check out some of her Bible study materials for the College Ministry. Going through this Nehemiah book study, I was immediately struck by two concepts in just the first day's reading.

My heart was captured and my mind focused first from Nehemiah's response to the news of Jerusalem's destruction in Chapter 1.

"When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for a number of days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven."

Nehemiah 1:4, HCSB

 

Nehemiah sat down and wept. He stopped what he was doing and allowed himself to feel despair, letting his emotions take over appropriately. Nehemiah was not concerned with hiding his feelings in light of his status as cupbearer to the king, rather his concern rested in those who were hurting, lost, and impacted by the destruction of a sacred city.  

Nehemiah didn't just stay in that place of darkness, though. He turned straight to God. He didn't ask his brother, who delivered the news, what could be done. Nehemiah set himself right before the Lord and then went to Him in prayer.

Too often I feel that we sweep important things under the rug and we go about our day for the sake of productivity with an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude. Even when we do acknowledge tragedy, it is not in our nature to dwell on it. There's no use crying over spilt milk, right? We have almost become desensitized to heartbreak because devastation is so prevalent -- an unfortunate sign of the times. But I am concerned that the joy many of us claim may not be as authentic as the Lord desires for us, because in an effort to self-protect we do not allow ourselves to truly experience pain. And how can you truly know joy if you have not known pain? I am not at all suggesting that we wallow in despair, but if there is anything I have learned in the past few years it is the truth that ignoring an issue does not make it disappear. Furthermore, acknowledging an issue without acknowledging and accepting your feelings about that issue creates much more suffering than necessary on down the road.

This leads into the second thing that struck me while reading this passage: how Nehemiah prayed. He began and finished his prayer by revering and honoring the Lord, confessing his sins and then boldly bringing forth his petitions to God. This very much reminds me of the ACTS acrostic the senior pastor of my church refers to when teaching on prayer.

A - Adoration
C - Confession
T - Thanksgiving
S - Supplication

"Yahweh, the God of heaven, the great and awe-inspiring God who keeps His gracious covenant with those who love Him and keep His commands, let Your eyes be open and Your ears be attentive to hear Your servant's prayer that I now pray to You day and night for Your servants, the Israelites."

Nehemiah 1:5-6, HCSB 

Nehemiah's heart was aligned with God's. He was not interested in personal gain. He remembered God's promises and prayed them -- not for himself -- but for others in order to glorify His king.

I don't know about you, but my prayers this morning started like this:
Lord, thank you for waking me up this morning. Thank you for [listed many blessings].  

Then it turned into: Help me do ____, show me _____, pull me through _____, give me ____. I ended it with the classic, "be it Your will," which I was pretty sure covered me.

It doesn't take a literary genius to recognize that there were a whole lot of "me" petitions in that prayer.

Nehemiah reminded me of some things I had allowed to fall into the back of my mind, though. These reminders re-shaped my prayers and I'm certain re-shaped my day going forward. I hope it does the same for you.