Early the following spring, in the month of
Nisan, during the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes’ reign, I was serving the
king his wine. I had never before appeared sad in his presence. So the king
asked me, “Why are you looking so sad? You don’t look sick to me. You must be
deeply troubled.” Then I was terrified, but I replied, “Long live the king! How
can I not be sad? For the city where my ancestors are buried is in ruins, and
the gates have been destroyed by fire.” The king asked, “Well, how can I help
you?” With a prayer to the God of heaven, I replied, “If it please the king,
and if you are pleased with me, your servant, send me to Judah to rebuild the
city where my ancestors are buried.” The king, with the queen sitting beside
him, asked, “How long will you be gone? When will you return?” After I told him
how long I would be gone, the king agreed to my request. (Nehemiah 2:1-6)
An oxymoron
(from the Greek word, ὀξύμωρον, meaning
"sharp dull") is a figure of speech that combines contradictory
terms. (Since when has a word been defined by a word? Now that’s oxymoronic.) For instance, original copy; jumbo shrimp;
pretty ugly; found missing; definite maybe; only choice; freezer burn; short prayer.
Is there any such
thing as a short prayer? Because when you think about prayer, what generally comes
to mind? Maybe the kind of prayer that goes on for
hours and hours, says the same thing over and over again, and throws in a lot
of "thee's" and "thou's" for good measure just to impress
the crowd. Sometimes, however, we make too much of prayer by making it far too complicated.
Here’s what I mean. God’s our father, we’re His kids, and you can talk to your
dad any time about anything you want. Sometimes you talk to Him for a long
time, sometimes you just give a little shout out, “Hey, Dad.” Sometimes you pour
your heart out to God through tears. Then again, sometimes you just say,
“Thanks.” There are all kinds of prayers: long prayers, short prayers,
in-between prayers.
Our man, Nehemiah,
prays throughout the book repeatedly, and it’s one of the great threads that weaves
the whole book together. And in this particular passage, Nehemiah offers up a quick
little prayer because, well … you know, certain decisions in life, even certain
opportunities in life, are strategic. If you miss it, it’s gone. For instance, are
you going to an important job interview? Pray. Taking a test? Definitely pray.
She’s cute, you’re scared and hoping she’ll go out with you? Pray a lot. So,
here, Nehemiah sends up a prayer, something along the lines of, “God, give me
the right words, give me the right spirit, give him the right attitude, and please
don’t let him kill me. Amen.” A quick little prayer. Perhaps a little background
on Nehemiah would help.
The first
chapter of the book bearing his name provides some pretty important details. The
year is 446 B.C., and Nehemiah is living in one of the Persian capitals,
Shushan. Artaxerxes is the king of the Persian Empire, and Nehemiah is on the
state payroll: he’s a cupbearer. The cupbearer was an officer of high rank in
the Egyptian, Persian and Assyrian empires. In those days, one of the best ways
to get rid of a king was to poison him. So, to prevent a catastrophe from
happening, the cupbearer would taste the wine before the king drank any of it. That
way, if the wine had been poisoned, the cupbearer would die instead of the
king. It was a very admirable, but risky, profession. Because of the constant
fear of plots and intrigues, a person had to be regarded as thoroughly
trustworthy to be a cupbearer. And because of the job’s close relationship to the
king, it was often a position of great influence.
So, Nehemiah’s
life was centered on serving and pleasing the king. Still, as a Jewish man living
in exile, Nehemiah’s thoughts were on home. We know this because, at the very
beginning of the book, we see Nehemiah asking about the state of Jerusalem, including
the condition of those who remained.
The report was
pretty grim: the survivors were seriously depressed, and the wall around Jerusalem
was nothing but charred rubble. In other words, the most precious monuments of Nehemiah’s
homeland had been completely destroyed, and many of his friends and family murdered.
Making matters worse, Nehemiah was some 800 miles away when he got the news. The
result? He wept and mourned, and fasted and prayed because he understood that there’s
an intersection between God’s
sovereignty and human responsibility. You see, God doesn’t need us to carry out his will. Really, he
doesn’t. It’s not as if God is somehow handcuffed by our lack of participation.
And yet, although God doesn’t need our
participation, he honors it. In fact, the Bible reveals a God who loves
to respond to his creation when they’re engaged in action. This is important to
remember since we’re prone to move between one of two polar extremes.
To our right is
the extreme that believes God is sovereign and doesn’t need our help. But this
extreme generally leads to the wrong conclusion that since God is sovereign, we
shouldn’t bother God with our petty little requests. Stated differently? God
will do whatever he wants to do regardless of whether or not he’s asked. Now, if
this had been Nehemiah’s theology he probably would have said in response to
the news about Jerusalem something like, “Well, that stinks, but hey, don’t
worry! God will fix things before too long. So, let’s just get back to business
as usual here in Shushan. There’s no need to lose any sleep over it. God will act
when he’s good and ready.” Now, it’s perfectly appropriate to think of God as
being sovereign because, well …. he is. But, we blow it if we allow that kind
of thinking to lead to a sense that our involvement is inconsequential. That’s
called “fatalism,” or “determinism.” It’s not good theology.
On our left,
however, is the other extreme that says that prayer, in and of itself, changes
things. With that kind of mindset, we can get to the point of thinking that everything
hinges on our prayers. If this had been Nehemiah’s theology, he probably would
have said, “Oh, this is all our fault! If we’d only prayed harder Jerusalem wouldn’t
be all messed up. But it’s not too late. We can fix this if we just pray hard
enough. Then, God will do what we ask.” This kind of thinking leads to the
conclusion that God is no longer sovereign, that we are, and that, somehow, our
prayers coax God into doing something that he didn’t want to do in the first
place. But now that we’ve gone and pestered him to death …. well, he’s gotta
act. I believe in persistency, but this kind of thinking carries matters to an
extreme. Nehemiah, on the other hand, regarded God as both utterly sovereign and willing to respond to human action.
We don’t have to
read too many verses before we see that God responds to Nehemiah’s prayer, but it’s
some three months later. And this is an important detail for all of us who
expect God to instantly move mountains when we pray. Even if we cite scripture assuring
us that God will answer our prayers, the Bible is replete with examples that God will, in fact, answer our
prayers, but at a time and in a manner of his choosing. Prayer’s not
some sort of magical incantation that produces instantaneous results. So, approximately
three months after hearing the news of Jerusalem’s desperate circumstances, Nehemiah
has an encounter with the king. In fact, the king is quite concerned about
Nehemiah since, apparently, Nehemiah had some sort of hang-dog look on his face
and was looking pretty down in the mouth. So, being sympathetic to Nehemiah’s situation,
the king says, “How can I help you?” And what follows the king’s question is
striking, maybe even profound, because rather than immediately answering the
king, Nehemiah prayed.
So, here’s the
picture. Nehemiah’s standing in front of the monarch of the strongest nation on
the planet, and seated next to him is his wife, no less. Compounding matters is
the fact that Nehemiah is absolutely terrified. He’s just standing there with
cup in hand, eyes like saucers, knees knocking, hands shaking, palms sweating,
heart racing, head throbbing and …….. he prays. I’m thinking it couldn’t have been
a very long prayer. In fact, the king probably didn’t even see his lips move,
or even notice the slight hesitation in Nehemiah’s response. It was just long
enough for Nehemiah to call upon the God of the universe for help.
I can remember a
time in elementary school when a comment would frequently show up on my report
card – something along the lines of, “Randy needs to think before he speaks.”
(Yeah, I know; it still plagues me) But Nehemiah does one better: he prays before he speaks. How many
of us can say that? Too often, we think of prayer as some sort of scheduled
time on the calendar to talk with God. But that’s not the model of prayer
demonstrated by Nehemiah. Nehemiah shows us that God was often on his mind, and
that no time was the wrong time to pray; no time was too short a time to pray.
In other words, he didn’t need a long prayer to get God’s attention.
However,
Nehemiah did more than just pray; he was ready to act. Nehemiah had asked the
king for a leave of absence in order to go back to Jerusalem and personally
oversee the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem. Nehemiah even had the nerve to
request that letters be written by the king so that he could show them to the
various governors with whom he’d come into contact along the way so that he
could travel freely. These letters would also secure the supplies necessary for
the extreme makeover in Jerusalem. And the king’s response? “The king granted them to me because the good
hand of my God was on me.” Ever feel the hand of God on you?
Do you see the
intersection between human responsibility and God’s sovereignty? Nehemiah prayed
because he knew that the remedy to his problem was completely beyond his
control. Nehemiah prayed because he understood that his success depended on God’s
hand being on him. But Nehemiah also understood that he was not inconsequential
to the process. He didn’t just pray; he readied himself to personally participate in the rebuilding of
Jerusalem. OK, but what does all this mean? Well, I think it means two things.
First, we must pray. Whatever our
predicament, whatever our circumstances, we need God’s hand to be on us if we
are to succeed. But secondly, we’ve got to do more than just pray. We’ve got to be willing to roll up our
sleeves and participate in what we’re praying for. For instance, are you
praying for your church? Wonderful, but are you capable of doing more? If not
personally involving yourself in the church’s various ministries, are you able
to write letters of encouragement to those who are? How about praying for growth
in attendance at Sunday’s worship services? Again, that’s terrific, but when
was the last time you invited a friend? We’ve got to commit ourselves to a high
standard of prayer. But that doesn’t mean lengthy, flowery, King Jamesy prayer rants.
Shorties will do, too. I mean look at Nehemiah. His prayer lasted maybe all of 1.9
seconds but it was effective, wasn’t it? But it was effective not only because
it was said, but because Nehemiah was ready to do more than just pray. True worship always results in service.
A.W. Tozer was
once approached by a preacher who complained that he needed more workers in
order to maintain the various ministries at his church. Tozer disagreed: “You
don’t need more workers.” “Oh, yes we do,” the preacher responded. “No, you
don’t. What you need are more worshippers,
because wherever there’s worshippers
there’s workers. I’ve never met
a true worshipper who was unwilling to work.”
So maybe a “short
prayer” isn’t oxymoronic after all. Fact is, we may have the shortest prayer on
record in the Bible and look what happened? But then again, maybe “answered
prayer” is an oxymoron of sorts, since wishing has never been a substitute for
prayer.
Grace,
Randy
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