See. Pray. Act. Leading Like Nehemiah, Part II – Pray
“Prayer is making the effort to become consciously present to the God who is constantly present to us.”
‘I guess all we can do now is pray.’
I have found myself uttering those words on more than one occasion, and as I type them now, I wish I could go back in time, shake that version of myself and get her to wake up! ‘All we can now do is pray’?! It’s as if we’ve exhausted all the really good options that might actually change our situation and prayer is our last, hopeless resort.
But I remember how it feels:
‘Can God really change this situation?’
‘We’ve been here before and not seen a change.’
It’s all too easy for us to neglect prayer as our final option rather than developing it as a kingdom of God muscle, as a knee-jerk reaction.
One leader who had a knee-jerk prayer reaction was Nehemiah. Nehemiah’s trigger was his ability to ‘see’ – it was the equivalent of the doctor’s tiny hammer that makes your leg swing out. When he saw, he prayed. He didn’t come up with the answers himself, he didn’t call a friend, he didn’t check his news app for an update on the story he had read two minutes before. He prayed.
As you read through Nehemiah, you will see a through-line of prayer. Depending on where you find him in his leadership journey, his prayers use different ingredients. I love that. Life is not one-size-fits-all, and so prayer is not one-size-fits-all.
In Matthew 6, Jesus introduces us to a direction and heart posture that I have found really helpful. It’s part of our toolkit for prayer. Every morning after dropping the kids at school, I go for a 10-minute prayer walk in the woods before heading to the office. It’s time for me to pray over the day and transition from ‘Mum’ to ‘Onelife’. At the end of that time I pray the Lord’s Prayer, and I am always struck by the fact that I join millions of other Christians who pray that prayer on a daily basis. The Holy Spirit always brings to mind people, issues and thoughts as I go through the words. It’s a vital starting point, but – as Nehemiah shows us – when the challenges of life hit, our prayers should take different forms.
‘Life is not one-size-fits-all, and so prayer is not one-size-fits-all’
Real
Nehemiah hears the news of Jerusalem and is utterly broken. He sits and weeps (1:4).
The psalms are full of heartfelt, angry, fearful, brutally real prayers.
Even Jesus cried out through tears as he prayed to his Father before stepping towards the cross.
The scriptural precedent is clear: there is permission to be a total wreck before God! In fact, I’d go so far as to say it is actively encouraged.
Remember
Nehemiah fills his prayers with declarations of who God is. He is constantly calling to mind the very definition of the God who led him to this place, and who he is totally reliant on. Alongside his vulnerable outpouring in the first chapter is a defiant expression of who God is in the midst of the pain:
‘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.’ – Nehemiah 4:5
Our experiences – whether positive or negative – can put a filter on how we see the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. it is so easy to build a theology based on our circumstances rather than submission to the word of God. When – like Nehemiah – we see our situation through the lens of praise, we have what I love to call a ‘pull focus’ moment. When there are two things in the frame of a camera, one in front of the other, one is in focus and the other is blurred. To change the perspective, you ‘pull focus’ so the other thing comes into crisp view.
When we declare in the face of any situation the nature and character of God, we pull focus and choose to see the situation differently in light of that truth.
Repentance
Repentance literally means to turn around and go in the other direction. We don’t like using the word very much these days, but we are missing a trick if we exclude it from our prayer life. True repentance gives us an alternative route to numbing our pain, ignoring our anxiety or fighting with our regret. Repentance means we can take those things before Jesus, sit in the shadow of the cross, and lay down the weight of our mistakes. The freedom and perspective it brings is why we call it Amazing Grace.
Nehemiah knew the power of repentance. He knew the need not to simply point the finger at others but to take ownership of the situation he was in. The call to repentance speaks into our individual lives as Jesus leads us to pray, ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.’
The ripple effect of those words prompts us to ask questions about areas of our life: where do we need to turn around and go in another direction?
But repentance also speaks on a bigger scale too. As we see what is happening in the world today, our knee-jerk reaction should be to pray and to repent. It’s all too easy to point the finger at our leaders or our institutions before first asking the Lord, ‘Where is my heart with these issues? What is my part to play?’
Reaction/arrow prayers
‘Jesus, help me!’
It’s as the Zoom meeting is about to begin. As I face a hard conversation. As I say goodbye to my kids on a tough day when I want to wrap them in cotton wool. I tend to call these reaction or arrow prayers. They take about four seconds but are enough to invite the kingdom of heaven to break out as we leave room for God to shape and interrupt the following moment.
Nehemiah lived and breathed this way of leading. As he was about to have the career meeting of his life and ask the king for permission to go and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (2:4), and as he faced great opposition and pressure in the middle of it all, he prays out his reaction, takes a deep breath, and continues to lead.
‘But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”’ – Nehemiah 6:9
‘Repentance means we can sit in the shadow of the cross and lay down the weight of our mistakes. The freedom and perspective it brings is why we call it Amazing Grace’
Take a moment to think about these four ingredients of Nehemiah’s prayer life. Which ones come naturally? Which ones feel less comfortable?
We are in a moment where God is calling us to pray. As leaders who can see what is happening in our culture, our first priority is to live lives that lean on Jesus through prayer so we can listen to his voice, go where he tell us and rebuild the walls where they are broken.
What might the world look like if Covid-19 saw a whole generation of young leaders turning up the prayer dial in their lives, stepping into their futures and dreams with the confidence of the ‘God of heaven’ going before them? What could happen if we were ready to usher in God’s way of working to the media, the arts, education and politics?
This week, take one of Nehemiah’s prayer ingredients and use it to start a new conversation with Jesus. You might want to try a prayer walk, find a quiet place to sit, or use a journal to record your prayers.
Take the journey further: