Wednesday Bible Study: Reconstructing Nehemiah III

 

So now we are 5 months of praying, fasting, and weeping for Nehemiah later, and he is waiting on the day that God would allow him to speak to the 'king of kings'- not a small feat, for even wives ran the risk of punishment for seeking him if he wasn't "in the mood", which we learn in Esther 4:11:

Est 4:11  "All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law--to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days." 

Last week, I noted (thinking it off-hand) that Nehemiah would have to come seeking permissions, logistical support, political clout, and a friend on the inside.  After I posted, I realized I wasn't guided to this list randomly- and it HAD to have an application for my situation.  I had a further confirmation when I felt that a passage from my morning reading in Psalms connected...

Psa 74:16  Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. 

Psa 74:17  You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter. 

How does that fit in- and fit in with me?  Let's find out together.

Permissions:  The day and the night (time).

Nehemiah, as we start chapter 2, was still waiting to talk to Artaxerxes:

Neh 2:1  In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. 

Neh 2:2  And the king said to me, "Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart." Then I was very much afraid. 

Note, you DON'T see anything like, "So I set my face to confront my lord."  He was waiting on God's timing.  And though he was patient, it was getting to him.  "Now I had not been sad in his presence"; but finally he had to let down the false face of contentment he was showing, and reveal his deep feelings to his king.  When we have something we go to God about, are we presenting a false face?  "I know I should be handling this..."  Jesus died so we DON'T have to, and shouldn't, 'handle this'.  I have to let down the "I need to do this" attitude and just say, "I can't do this, and it makes me sad."

The lights, and logistics:

Now he was exposed before the king- emotion showed before the king might be a death sentence.  "You make me sad, I make you sad".  Why don't we just come with our sadness, our weakness, to God?  At its end, it's pride; but also fear- fear of the consequences of admitting, "I'm not good enough."  But here's the thing-

Jas 4:1  What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 

Jas 4:2  You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 

Jas 4:3  You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 

He HAD to ask- and it had to be honest.  No BS story about, "Sad? I'm not sad", or, "Because I have not brought you riches and glory" was gonna do it.  So now, with God having finally put his back against the wall, Nehemiah asks:

Neh 2:3  I said to the king, "Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?" 

Here's where the logistics comes in:

Neh 2:4  Then the king said to me, "What are you requesting?" So I prayed to the God of heaven. 

Far from being destroyed, mocked, or ignored, Nehemiah found the door opened to him, just because he had explained the need.  Fear of the Lord shouldn't involve being literally afraid.  Psa 62:7  On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God.  Psa 62:8  Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah .  But here's the next thing- what do I REALLY need?  That takes Wisdom- aka the Holy Spirit- to get right before God.  This is a GOOD thing, though- 

Rom 8:26  Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 

Rom 8:27  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 

Politics, and the boundaries:

Now the logistics- the physical logistics- runs into the political for Nehemiah.  He requests: Permission to do the job;  he sets a time limit to do it ( apparently 12 years); and letters for the governors of the satrapies he'll have to cross, giving him permission to cross; and finally a blank check at the hardware store:

Neh 2:8  and a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress of the temple, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall occupy." And the king granted me what I asked, for the good hand of my God was upon me. 

Does the list apply to us- to me?  Well, consider: Not every problem we have is something God necessarily WANTS to take from us:

2Co 12:7  So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 

2Co 12:8  Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 

2Co 12:9  But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

- so, yeah, asking permission for my "mission" is required- something I hadn't thought about before this moment.  Plus, it is like the 'two wolves' story- thew one you feed is the one that lives.  If I have been feeding my "wolf" for a long time, it's going to take time to starve it to death.  So time is definitely a factor, just as it has been for Nehemiah from the start.  Then, the deed is going to cross a lot of old borders- borders of resources, of society, of habits needing to change.  I will have to ask God for the strength at EACH stop.  AND, finally, I'm going to have to rely on God's provision to "build back better".

Finally, the seasons and the friend on the inside:

Seasons change, moods change.  If Artaxerxes had been upset, growling about those annoying Greeks, or whatever, he might not have been in the giving mood he was.  "If you can't do you job right, being joyful before me, what good are you?"  But God had inserted, I believe, an x-factor:

Neh 2:6  And the king said to me (the queen sitting beside him)...

I mentioned before the speculation that this was Esther.  Think on it:  God had already given her an access to the king that most wives never got (remember, the last wife got fired for not dancing naked in front of his buddies); that she was there might have been the modifying force to make Artaxerxes so amenable. Esther was also expert in being there "for such a time as this" (Esther 4:14), and would it be a stretch for God to use her this way again?  Plus, she was a Jew, just as Nehemiah, and both shared blood and similar circumstances would have made her sympathetic to Nehemiah's plight.  Finally, it explains why the Spirit led Nehemiah to add, "the Queen sitting beside him" in the first place!  But now, what has that to do with me?  Well...

1Jn 2:1  My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 

So what do I/we learn from all this?  

-God has His timing...

-I need to let my false face of strength drop...

- I have to ask, and seek the Spirit to ask the right thing...

- I have to inquire IF what I want is in His will....

-I have to be prepared to let a LOT of things change...

- I need to rely on His provision....

- and I need to let Jesus be my advocate.

Lord, help me to bring this in prayer to you, to seek your will in this, to guide me in self-examination, in trusting you with the changes necessary, and relying not on my strength- or even my perception of the problem- and put all things into the hands of Jesus my Savior.  Amen.