Where to start when you can’t find the strength to begin
The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow.
Joni Eareckson Tada
Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
Augustine
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
James 1:2–3
It was February 20, 1986, in Marysville, California, where I had been pastor to the small congregation of Feather River Baptist Church for five years. My wife, Chaundel, had just finished cleaning our house for a women’s ministry meeting, so I decided to take her out for a fine dining experience at Carl’s Jr. As we drove over the bridge into town, we noticed that the waters were still filling the river to the very top of the levees. A warm winter rain had hit the nearby Sierra Nevada Mountains, melting much of the snowpack and swelling the lakes and rivers to capacity.
After ordering and sitting down to eat at the restaurant, we saw that people were getting up and leaving in a hurry and went to ask at the counter what was happening.
“A levee broke,” we were told, “but you don’t have to worry because it’s on the other side of the river.”
“We do have to worry,” we said. “We live on that side of the river.”
The water rushed through the broken levee and destroyed the mall and businesses that were closest to the break. Then it flooded all that was in its path as it spread through the entire town.
Our home, our church buildings, and many of our members’ homes were destroyed, under up to nine feet of water. It’s never a good thing to see your house in the lead story for NBC’s nightly news program. All Chaundel and I had left were the clothes on our backs and the car we were driving. We drove our Chevy to the levee, and the levee was dry!
It’s easier to have some perspective many years later, but I can still remember feeling my hands shake with the adrenaline reaction to a circumstance that immediately changed everything. We had the work of rebuilding our house in front of us. And we had the more difficult work of leading a church of people who all needed to rebuild.
People asked us if we were just going to close the church because the building had been destroyed. Of course not! The church is not a building; it is the people—and thankfully, no one had died in this flood that destroyed so much property.
As I thought about what I would say to encourage these people I loved as they began to rebuild, my mind went to Scripture. The Bible is God’s love letter to us, and it shows us how to face the best and the worst of life. I remembered a book in the Bible that is entirely about putting something together again: the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah was a government leader who rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem after it had fallen into ruin.
As I began to read through this book again with a laser focus on what it taught about how to put things together again, I was amazed at the principles so clearly exemplified by Nehemiah. As these principles began to unfold, I came across Nehemiah 2:20, an encouragement for all who need to rebuild. In that verse, Nehemiah says, “The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding.” This verse became our theme for the next several years.
If you’re going to put something together again, you need to know how to fit the pieces. If you’re going to rebuild, you must have the right plan, just as much as you needed blueprints to build in the first place. I found that the book of Nehemiah is filled with principles for how to put things together again in a way that will work and how to rebuild in a way that will last.
As I’ve taught these rebuilding principles in the years since, I’ve seen people in a wide variety of circumstances find help. You don’t have to go through a natural disaster to need to rebuild. For you, putting it together again may mean starting fresh in a career or a relationship. It could just as well involve the need to recover financially, finish a project that’s taking too long, restore confidence, renew vision, or face up to some unpleasant task.
It’s very likely this kind of change looks impossible to you right now. Things are just too much of a mess for there to be any hope of restoration. We’re going to see that Nehemiah had to clear away a lot of rubble before he could start to rebuild the wall! To learn from his example, we will walk through a process that shows how to sort out the possibilities from the rubble.
How do you rebuild what’s in ruins? I’ve talked to many people who have faced such difficult circumstances, and I’ve found that the emotional energy drain of working to rebuild has often taken them to a place where they can’t seem to care. They know they should care about starting over, yet just can’t find it in them to care anymore.
What Nehemiah teaches us about putting it together again will help you see where to start, even when you can’t seem to find the strength to begin. If you already had the energy, you would have started already! God understands that, and he will start with you where you are.
One of the most enriching aspects of looking at the book of Nehemiah is Nehemiah himself. Nehemiah was a man filled with faith—the kind of faith that took action and changed the direction of an entire nation. His faith resulted in the courage to step out, to trust God in prayer, and to find direction for the day-to-day management of problems and opportunities.
Throughout this book, I’ll provide a number of opportunities for you to stop and pray. They are there to refresh you for whatever restoration project is in front of you. Since you’re in reading mode, it would be easy to skip over these prayers. I’ll keep them short so it will be easy for you to pray. Simply read the next few sentences with a prayerful attitude.
Father, I pray that you will use the faith lessons in the book of Nehemiah to put back together what needs to be rebuilt in my life. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
WHERE IT BEGINS
Finding the strength to start is the first step in putting it together again. That strength begins with our reaction to the problem we’re facing. Our greatest problem is not our problem; it is how we react to that problem. One of the keys to rebuilding is the way we look at problems.
Your reaction to a problem is determined by the way you see that problem. If you look at a problem and think, It’s a disaster; all is lost, then your reaction is going to be despair. If you look at a problem and think, It’s unnecessary; that shouldn’t have happened, then your reaction is irritation. If you look at a problem and think, It’s unfair, then your reaction is anger. If you look at a problem and think, It’s deserved; I did it to myself, then your reaction is guilt or shame.
There is a better way. We can look at every problem and think, It’s an opportunity to trust God. Then our reaction is faith. A faith reaction to our problems will radically change the direction of our lives. Warren Wiersbe wrote, “The optimist sees possibilities in the problems, and the pessimist sees problems in the possibilities. One sees the opportunities and the other sees the obstacles. But the real basis for optimism is faith . . . If we see only the problems, we will be defeated; but if we see the possibilities in the problems, we can have victory.”1
Nehemiah describes the problem he was facing this way: “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire” (Nehemiah 1:3). The problem was that the people of God were living in disgrace, and the cause of the problem was that the walls of Jerusalem were in ruins.
In Nehemiah’s day, a city’s wall was not a decoration; it was its protection. With the walls in ruins, any enemy could easily attack. A city’s gates were more than an entrance; they were the civic gathering place—the place where the courts and government met. Without its gates, the city was without leadership.
As Nehemiah faced this problem, he faced the same question all of us face: Will I see only the problem, or will I see the opportunity to trust God in the problem? The Bible clearly shows that our problems are to be seen as opportunities for faith:
• “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow” (James 1:2–3 NLT).
• “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
• “We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3–4).
The important question always is, “How do we do this?” Nehemiah models some practical steps we can take to begin to react to problems in a new kind of way.
Reacting in a different way is more than just knowing we should think a certain way. That just creates a feeling of guilt. We find ourselves thinking, I know I should have more faith, but I don’t have more faith, and all I can see is the problem. What’s wrong with me? Nehemiah shares some practical things we can do to get out of that trap of guilt-laden thinking.
We see how Nehemiah began to move from the shock of a problem to a reaction of faith in Nehemiah 1:4: “When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.”
There are three choices in this verse for beginning to see any problem as an opportunity for faith: mourn, fast, and pray.
• Mourning is expressing your hurt to God.
• Fasting is focusing your heart on God.
• Praying is asking for help from God.
Moving to a place of faith is not accomplished by just flipping a switch. There is a process for beginning to see your problem as an opportunity for faith that includes mourning, fasting, and praying. You cannot choose most of your circumstances, but you can always choose your reaction to those circumstances.
When someone tells you to “just have faith,” although you know they may have your best interests at heart, it can sound like an unreachable platitude. If you could have had faith, you would have had faith, and the words just make you feel guiltier for not having faith! Nehemiah gives us a place to start in the process that gets us to the place of faith when we face a need to rebuild.
MOURNING: Express Your Hurt to God
Nehemiah’s immediate reaction to the need to restore the walls was tears. He cried for his city; he cried for God’s city.
In 587 BC, Babylon had attacked Jerusalem and destroyed its walls and the temple. All but a few of the people of the southern part of Israel were removed from their land and deported to Babylon, where they suffered in captivity.
Almost fifty years later, in about 538, Persia defeated Babylon, and Cyrus, the king of Persia, began to send some of the people back to Israel. In his first year as king, he sent a group back to rebuild the temple.
Nearly a hundred years later, Nehemiah, an exile from Israel who had risen to become the cupbearer for the current Persian king Artaxerxes, learned that the walls of Jerusalem were still in ruins:
Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem.
They said to me, “Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire.”
When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
Nehemiah 1:2–4
His first reaction was to sit down and weep. But he also had a continued reaction. He mourned over a period of some days. It only takes a moment to cry; it takes time to mourn.
The word for “mourning” in the Hebrew language is abal. It carries the idea of showing emotion, expressing it both audibly and visibly. We need models of how to mourn, and they are found throughout the Old Testament:
• “Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her” (Genesis 23:2).
• “Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days” (Genesis 37:34).
• “When they reached the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan, they lamented loudly and bitterly; and there Joseph observed a seven-day period of mourning for his father” (Genesis 50:10).
• “When the whole community learned that Aaron had died, all the Israelites mourned for him thirty days” (Numbers 20:29).
• “The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over” (Deuteronomy 34:8).
• “When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly” (Esther 4:1).
• “At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks” (Daniel 10:2).
I give these examples because we need some new models for how we mourn. Our culture is not good at mourning, and I know that, as a product of that culture, I’m not good at mourning. I want to mourn too fast and too clean. I want to get back to work as a way to calm the pain instead of taking the time to mourn to begin to heal the pain.
The mourning in these examples is not hidden; it’s loud. Putting on sackcloth made it evident to all that they were grieving. Their mourning was not pretty. Mordecai of the book of Esther is a mentor for all mourners. Like Nehemiah, he saw what began in mourning save a nation. His mourning was not dignified, but it was honest. It came with the rough texture of sackcloth and the black streaks of bitter tears running through the ashes that covered his face.
You see examples in the Old Testament of mourning that lasted seven days (Genesis 50:10), thirty days (Numbers 20:29), and even seventy days (Genesis 50:3–4). It takes time to mourn. You can’t do it in an instant.
Is there a hurt or a loss you’ve never taken the time to mourn? You may have faced this hurt many years ago, or you may be facing it right now. There are huge hurts of life and the day-by-day hurts of life, and with both of them, you need to take time to mourn.
Have you taken the time to mourn the loss of that important relationship? Or are you hiding from the hurt in your hurry?
You may be getting older and don’t have the physical energy you used to have. Have you taken time to mourn that loss? Or are you just sort of irritated about it all the time?
Here’s why this is so important: If you don’t take the time to mourn, you can’t see the opportunity in the problem, because you will never see past the hurt. What is it that you need to take the time to mourn?
You may think, But that will make me sad. Sadness is not a bad thing. There are some things in life that need to be mourned. Our culture of denial says sadness is always bad, but that is just simply not true. In fact, the sadness of mourning brings one of God’s greatest gifts into our lives.
I was recently preparing a funeral message for a family who had lost their young mom in heartbreaking circumstances and was searching my mind for how to express God’s hope to them. As I was considering what to say, I felt God impressing me to not talk to them about hope, but to encourage them to mourn. Jesus taught us, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). Our mourning brings the gift of God’s comfort, a gift that often comes only through our mourning. By not taking the time to mourn, we are missing out on the comfort our Father wants to give.
One of the most important things to learn about mourning is that we all grieve in different ways. Some need to talk; some need to be quiet. Some have a flood of tears; others feel a dearth of emotion. I have learned that our grief is one of the most individual things about us. Grief is like our fingerprints—unique to every one of us.
Some who don’t understand this are reluctant to mourn because they feel pressed to mourn like others, in a way that doesn’t fit their unique personality. Let me say clearly that I’m not telling you how to mourn; I’m simply encouraging you to take the time to mourn in a way that fits you.
Mourning expresses honest grief over what has been lost. Seeing the opportunity in any problem begins by being able to say there is a problem. There is a form of Christian denial that wants to skip this step. Some Christians pretend that because God works within their problems, there is no loss in them. It’s a shortcut that short-circuits the work God needs to do in our souls if we are to truly rebuild.
In the Japanese art form kintsugi, a broken pot is repaired with glue that is infused with gold dust. The result is veins of gold where the vase has been put back together. The vase has still been broken, yet it now has a beauty it did not have before. It often has an even greater value than it had before.
It’s enticing to say this shows that when something has been broken, it is now all the better for it. This is not about “better” or “worse”; it’s about working with the reality of something that has been broken. “Better” and “worse” thinking can be our greatest enemy when we are seeking to put something together again.
This is because we all know deep inside that it would have been better if it had not been broken in the first place. If that awful thing hadn’t happened. If those words had not been said. If we had only done something different. The ultimate in this “better” or “worse” thinking is that it would have been better if Adam and Eve had not sinned in the garden. But they did sin, as any of us would have. And so we live in a broken world.
Instead of chasing the false picture that it’s better to be broken, let kintsugi illustrate the truth that God is a master craftsman in working with what is broken. Embrace the reality revealed in 2 Corinthians 4:7 (NLT) that we are clay pots: “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.”
God invites us to focus not on the clay jar, but on what he has put into the jar. Yes, the jar is fragile and easily broken. And yes, God has poured his love and grace into that very jar. As we see this truth more and more, we’ll find that we are relying less on a need to convince ourselves that “it’s really better this way,” and more on the power of God that is at work, even with what has been broken.
FASTING: Focus Your Heart on God
Nehemiah teaches us to fast to help us focus our attention on God as we consider our need to put something together again. The idea of fasting, or abstaining from food for a time, may be unfamiliar to you. Let’s take a very brief look at what the Bible teaches about fasting.
Fasting is always accompanied by prayer in the Scriptures. Two examples among many are Anna of the Christmas story and the early church in Antioch.
Then she [Anna] lived as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshiping God with fasting and prayer.
Luke 2:37 NLT
Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.
Acts 14:23
The attitude behind fasting is humility. In preparation for the return of the Israelites to Jerusalem, Ezra the priest leads the people to fast “so that we might humble ourselves before our God” (Ezra 8:21). Jesus warns us in the Sermon on the Mount about fasting to impress others: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:1). You don’t fast to get others’ attention on you; you fast to get your attention on God.
People fasted for different reasons—sometimes to express grief (2 Samuel 1:11), sometimes to express repentance (Jonah 3:4–5; Daniel 9:3–6), sometimes to earnestly ask for God’s help (2 Chronicles 20:2–4), and sometimes as an expression of worship and fellowship with God (Luke 2:36–37; Acts 13:1–2).
Reading through these verses shows that fasting is not just a change in diet; it is a change in activity that prompts a change in heart. The value of fasting is not in what we aren’t doing—namely, eating; it’s in what we are doing—namely, focusing on God.
The purpose of fasting is not self-denial. In fact, focusing merely on denying ourselves food or drink has no spiritual benefit and often results in pride: “These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires” (Colossians 2:23 NLT).
The value of fasting is that it opens up space for focusing on God. If you don’t focus your attention on God, you will find yourself either narrowing the picture or blurring the picture. You narrow the picture when all you see is the problem. Focusing on God helps you see the greatness of God as you face a need to rebuild. You blur the picture when you become so overwhelmed that you try to escape the problem or live in denial that there is a problem. There are a lot of busy people trying to escape problems. Focusing your attention on God gives the spiritual strength to face the reality of the difficulty.
Just wanting to focus more on God is not enough. We need to do something practical that will change our focus. People are not like cameras; we don’t have autofocus! We must intentionally focus, and fasting helps us do that. Fasting is an intentional change of perspective as we focus on God.
Here’s a simple place to start: try a one-meal fast. If you never eat breakfast, that doesn’t count! Take a meal you usually eat and use that time to fix your attention on God. For instance, skip a lunch and take that thirty minutes or hour to focus your attention on God with that hurt you’ve been facing. If you have dietary issues, please check with your doctor first.
PRAYER: Ask for Help from God
To react to a problem in a way that helps you see the opportunity for faith, you mourn, you fast, and then you pray.
It’s important to note that prayer is the third thing Nehemiah does. Before he prays, he takes time to mourn and fast. He takes some time to express his heart and to experience the presence of God before he begins to pray.
If you feel like you don’t have anything to say when you sit down to pray, the best thing to do is to not say anything. Sit in God’s presence and silently mourn the loss. That will lead to a place where you can pray.
What a prayer Nehemiah prays! He gives us a model of four specific ways to pray that will help you recognize God’s opportunities for faith in the midst of your problems. We’re letting Nehemiah guide us through what to do in the process of rebuilding, so I encourage you to pray these prayers as you read them.
The prayer that strengthens you to see the opportunity for faith as you rebuild begins by recognizing who God is:
“LORD, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel.”
Nehemiah 1:5–6
Nehemiah prays to God as “the great and awesome God.” Recognize that God is all-powerful when you pray—especially in the midst of a problem.
Then he prays, “Who keeps his covenant of love.” God is all-powerful, and he is also faithful. We can count on him to keep his promises. God never promised us no problems in this world; he promised just the opposite. He tells us we will face trials. God promises hope in the midst of problems. God has promised deliverance one day from all of our problems.
Then he prays, “Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open.” God is aware of your need. His eyes are wide open. His ears are always attentive. He knows exactly what you’re going through. When you remind yourself of this in prayer, you are reminding yourself of the truth of who God is.
About a week after the flood that destroyed our church and homes, a few dozen members of our small church gathered at Mary Lou’s house to pray together. It would be our first meeting together as a church after the dispersal and confusion of the flood. Although I would be leading the prayer meeting, I honestly didn’t know what to expect.
My fear was that our anxiety over our circumstances would overwhelm our feeble attempts at prayers. Instead, as we quietly voiced our trust in God’s goodness and faithfulness, we felt our faith being built in ways I can only describe as miraculous. We walked from that room with the same circumstances as when we had walked in, but with our faith soaring to heights that carried us through the rebuilding.
If only every prayer meeting were like this. For every experience like this, I can count dozens upon dozens where we were faithful to pray but felt very little new strength as we prayed those prayers. I’ve come to see that even in those times when we may not feel the power of the prayer, the prayer is working just as powerfully.
When we focus on the character and greatness of God rather than just reciting our worries, we will often find new strength coming in the moment of our prayers.
The fact that we may or may not feel an emotional burst of strength in the moment of prayer often has little to do with the real strength that God gives the next hour or day in the moment of need.
The prayer that helps you to see the opportunity for faith as you face a problem first recognizes who God is. Second, it recognizes who you are. Nehemiah prays, “I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses” (Nehemiah 1:6–7).
Nehemiah is open with God about the sins not only of the nation but also of himself and his family. Problems are present in this world, not because of who God is, but because we trust ourselves instead of God. It began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and we’re still bringing those problems into life today.
Our sin causes us to have shame over the problems we know are our fault, and blame over the problems we consider to be someone else’s fault. Admitting this painfully obvious truth that we resort to shame and blame is often the key to breaking through the problem and getting to a place where we can have faith.
We all have sinful selfishness in our lives. Sometimes we see it, and sometimes we don’t. It’s refreshing to sit in God’s presence and say, “I know some of the selfishness that is in my life, but also know there is much I don’t see. I confess what I do know, and I thank you for loving me.” This honest confession has the power to move us from a place of shame or blame to a place of faith. It moves us from focusing on what we deserve to focusing on God’s undeserved grace.
Third, if you want to have faith in the midst of your problems, you have to call on the promises of God. Nehemiah offers this prayer:
“Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’
“They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand.”
Nehemiah 1:8–10
Nehemiah found a specific promise for his situation from the Old Testament, and he spoke it out as he prayed. He remembered with God the promise that even if the people were exiled, God would gather them if they would only return to him.
Instead of looking for hope in his circumstances, Nehemiah looked for hope in the promises of God. You cannot depend on your circumstances. It may seem you can when your circumstances are going well, but then they turn against you. I’ve often benefited from what David Henderson wrote about circumstances:
If there was a police lineup of all that had ever robbed anyone of hope, certainly the most fingered culprit would be that foul menace called Circumstance. Circumstantia means “stand around.” The word points to those events and people that crowd in around us, loitering in the halls of our lives and blocking the view out the window to the broader reality beyond . . .
When positive circumstances crowd around us, we are tempted to deposit our hope in them, not the Lord. The stock market climbs, and our portfolio grows. We tiptoe our way through some tough circumstances and come out unscathed . . . How tempting it is to believe that circumstances like these are solid enough to stand on, to bear the weight of our confidence, our identity, or our future . . .
Negative circumstances are equally adept at crowding out our view of deeper realities. When illness strikes, we cannot look beyond the pain. Grief blocks the view when a loved one dies, embarrassment clouds our vision when we are fired from a job, weariness and resentment get in our way when we care for an aging parent, and loneliness crowds the window when an engagement falls through . . .
Despair says circumstances tell us what is true about God. Hope says God tells us what is true about circumstances.2
A great opportunity presents itself when circumstances betray you—the opportunity to depend on God’s great promises. Nehemiah teaches us how to take the most important step in depending on God’s promises. He found a specific promise that fit the circumstance he was facing. The more specific the promise, the more your faith is strengthened.
To find that promise, look in the Bible—as Nehemiah did. It is filled with the promises of God; one writer has counted more than eight thousand.3 How do you find the one you need amid all the verses in the Bible? Maybe you’ll be successful by doing a search on the web to find it, but I’ve found that’s not the way it usually happens. God typically takes us through a process of searching. It could be through studying the Bible, listening to a message, or talking to another believer. When we discover a promise through this process, it’s like finding buried treasure.
When our home and church were destroyed by a flood, I needed a promise for my own life, and as a young pastor, I wanted to give hope to our church. I began to read through the book of Nehemiah, since I knew it was about rebuilding, and I came across the promise we looked at earlier from Nehemiah 2:20: “We his servants will start rebuilding.”
Those words hit me like an electric jolt; it was just the promise I needed. In my searching, God gave me a promise I will treasure for the rest of my life. This process of searching starts with prayer. Ask God what specific promise he has for the problem you are facing as you begin your search.
Nehemiah’s final lesson on prayer for those who would rebuild is to ask for specific help as you pray: “Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man” (Nehemiah 1:11). Nehemiah specifically asks for success as he prepares to go to make a request of the king.
Notice that this is a prayer with a schedule—“give your servant success today.” And it’s a prayer with a plan—“favor in the presence of this man.” Nehemiah asks specifically for what he needs and specifically for when he needs it.
Sometimes we try to do God a favor by being very general with our prayers: “God, if you want to give success someday, I pray that one day you might give whatever success you want to give, unless you don’t want to give it.”
We don’t want to be presumptive in God’s presence, so we overreact by not asking for anything at all. Ask specifically! The Holy Spirit will often motivate specific prayers for God’s will to be done in your life. And if you are specifically wrong in what you request, God will specifically redirect your heart.
I encourage you to put these four lessons on praying with faith into practice by praying right now:
Father, I offer you praise in the midst of this problem. You are greater than any problem I am facing. You are a great and awesome God. Keep me aware of your unfailing love and your faithful working out of your plan. I confess the sin I am aware of, and I thank you for the forgiveness you’ve given in Christ. I ask you to lead me in searching for a promise to hold on to. Finally, here are my practical requests for what I’m asking you to do and when I’m asking you to do it as I face this need to rebuild. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
FIND THE STRENGTH TO START: My First Steps
MOURNING: Express your hurt to God
Write down some of the ways you have expressed your hurt to God—or plan to express your hurt. Some people are helped by journaling, others by solitude. Some best express their hurt sitting in a comfortable place, others while walking. Some need to express their heart to God in silence; others will express their heart out loud. Listening to music can speak to your heart in ways that nothing else can. Here is a list of songs you may want to listen to:
SONGS FOR THE HURTING
Kari Jobe—“I Am Not Alone”
Steven Curtis Chapman—“Jesus Will Meet You There”
Plumb—“Need You Now (How Many Times)”
Laura Story—“Blessings”
Meredith Andrews—“Not for a Moment”
Jeremy Camp—“He Knows”
Lauren Daigle—“Trust in You”
Casting Crowns—“Just Be Held”
For King and Country—“Busted Heart (Hold On to Me)”
Pam Thum—“Life Is Hard (God Is Good)”
Sara Groves—“He’s Always Been Faithful”
Matt Maher—“Lord, I Need You”
JJ Heller—“Your Hands”
Building 429—“No One Else Knows”
Meredith Andrews—“Hands That Are Holding Me”
All Sons and Daughters—“Great Are You, Lord”
Danny Gokey—“Tell Your Heart to Beat Again”
Audrey Assad—“Good to Me”
MercyMe—“The Hurt and the Healer”
Tommy Walker—“When I Don’t Know What to Do”
Ginny Owens—“If You Want Me To”
Matt Redman—“Blessed Be Your Name”
Phil Wickham—“Safe”
Steven Curtis Chapman—“Hallelujah, You Are Good”
Third Day—“Cry Out to Jesus”
Shane & Shane—“Though You Slay Me”
Nichole Nordeman and Erin O’Donnell—“You Are Good”
You can download this as a Spotify playlist at http://sptfy.com/Y2u.
FASTING: Focus your heart on God
Write down your date for a day of fasting.
Decide if you’re going to do a one-meal fast, a juice fast (in which you drink juice instead of eat food for each meal), or a day-long fast. You may need to check with your doctor, and you should always drink water when you fast.
Take the time you would have eaten to focus on God in silence, prayer, or reading.
Remember that your greatest benefit from fasting may come not on the day you fast but on the days that follow.
PRAYER: Ask for help from God
Make plans to take the step of talking to God about what you need to put together again, whether it’s in an extended time of prayer or in a brief daily prayer time.
Use Nehemiah’s simple outline to direct your prayers:
• Recognize who God is.
• Recognize who you are.
• Call on God’s promises.
• Ask for specific help.