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I was inspired by the sermon that I heard on June 26 at my church.
The speaker was talking about Nehemiah and that despite continuous opposition, he did not give up rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. The speaker encouraged us by telling us not to give up on our battles that we face currently. He reminded us that our victory might be just around the corner. I was touched by that because my biggest battle right now is Carlos' horrible attitude towards me. It is so discouraging, because I feel like I'm knocking on heaven's door regularly, and there is absolutely no fruit--no sign that God is working behind the scenes. Intellectually, I understand that is not true, but emotionally it takes a toll. I just really needed to hear that from him.
I felt a quickening in my spirit as the service was ending. I felt that God was calling me to examine Nehemiah more closely in my quiet time. I began yesterday, and spent at least an hour just on Nehemiah chapter 1. I was astonished at all that God wanted to show me! I am so excited! I have no idea what God's plans are, but I will promise to be open to wherever He leads me. Right now I'm very content to sit at His feet and absorb all that He wants to share with me.
Here's one thing He pointed out to me. I had not realized this before.
You know how the last sentence of Nehemiah 1 is "For I was the king's cupbearer." That always seemed so random to me. Like that sentence belonged in the first verse of chapter 2, not chapter 1. Yesterday it dawned on me the reason it's in chapter 1.
I realized that when Nehemiah was weeping and fasting and praying in verse 4 (because things were bad in Jerusalem), God began to show Nehemiah that HE was going to be the one to rebuild Jerusalem. God gave Nehemiah his marching orders during the time that he was fasting and praying: God told him to approach the king and request permission to go to Jerusalem and rebuild it. You can tell because the last part of his prayer is "and let Your servant prosper this day, I pray, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man." So Nehemiah understood what God was calling him to do, and he had determined that he would approach the king "this day" and that he would need God's favor and mercy because this was a daunting task: he was asking the king to reverse an earlier proclamation to stop rebuilding Jerusalem (Ezra 4:17-21). In Persia, in that culture, once the king issued a command, nothing could change it, not even the king himself (Esther 8:8, 11-12) (Daniel 6:14-15).
When you read Nehemiah 2, you can see clearly that Nehemiah is definitely afraid (v. 2: "So I became dreadfully afraid" and v. 4: "Then the king said to me, "What do you request?" So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said ...") Why did he pray as soon as the king asked, "What do you request?" Because he was scared to tell the king what his request was.
I love it because we do that even today. We have to do something really hard; we prepare ourselves; we pray ahead of time, and then sometimes we are still wracked with fear and we pray while we're in the moment. That's what Nehemiah was doing.
God had prepared Nehemiah sometime earlier by positioning him as the king's cupbearer: a very intimate position that required a lot of trust on the king's part. As cupbearer, the king would get to know Nehemiah in a much more intimate way than most other royal positions. They would develop a relationship through which the king would take a personal interest in Nehemiah. Before Nehemiah started interceding powerfully for his beloved Jerusalem, God had already positioned him to bring about the answer to his prayers. So profound. Our God truly is SO big! When Nehemiah began to work as the king's cupbearer, he had no idea that God was positioning him for something much bigger! Has God ever done that to you?! He has done that in my life.
And I just want to recognize Nehemiah's bravery: he was so scared, BUT HE DID IT SCARED. And look at the amazing blessings for him personally, and for the Israelites as a people. He would have missed out on so much if he had refused to obey God's call. I'm so glad he rose to the occasion and pushed through his fear. :)
And that's just ONE revelation of many that God pointed out to me yesterday.
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