Daily Thought

The manner in which God works out His purposes through men is made evident in this short sequence of events described in today’s reading. In addition, we have here an example of how God responds to prayer coming from men, so that in the midst of a wide-ranging programme dictated by His sovereign will He allows their prayerful interventions to be influential in the way that programme is completed.

Nehemiah has prayed his prayer of the earlier chapter, having taken account of the adverse report brought to him by Hanani and the men of Judah, and as with others who pray he waited for God’s response. In fact, four months elapsed before his prayer was answered, and then in a manner that was both unexpected and testing.

Performing his duties as the king’s cup-bearer, and therefore being in regular contact with Artaxerxes, the deep-seated sorrow that Nehemiah carried at this time of crisis became obvious to the monarch. An aura of sadness had descended upon him, and despite all attempts to hide the fact, its appearance brought comment, and question, from his royal master.

We may detect from Nehemiah’s immense fear at this development that there were possibly dire consequences should the king take displeasure from this. However, his overwhelming concern for his land and his people overcame any desire for self-preservation, and so Nehemiah declared the situation to his master, v. 3. The king’s reaction to this, ‘For what dost thou make request?’, v. 4, must have brought instant relief to his troubled servant, and an awareness that God was now answering his original prayer! How easy it would have been for him then, in the euphoria of the moment and the consciousness that God was adopting him as His agent, to have blurted out all the pent-up hopes and aspirations of many days. But this was not Nehemiah’s way of procedure, for the man of prayer is ever the man of dependence upon God. Even in a situation where, apparently, prayer has been answered he yet prays that he might go on to fulfil God’s established will in every possible way. His prayer was short - it had to be in the circumstances! It was silent, and possibly wordless. He took up no obvious posture for praying, and prayed with eyes opened! But the ‘God of heaven’, v. 4, to whom he prayed, heard him and responded instantly.