Man of Prayer

Nehemiah 1

Nehemiah 1:4–11 ESV

As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cupbearer to the king.

This is the opening of the book of Nehemiah. In the few verses preceeding we see that he learns that the wall of Jerusalem has been broken down and the gates are destroyed. This saddened him greatly and we see that he mourned with fasting and prayer for days.

Nehemiah was known as a man of prayer. He prayed often and he prayed powerfully. We see that he joined prayer with fasting some too which is a highly neglected discipline. When I read of the praying of Nehemiah it inspires me to work harder to be a man of prayer like him.

So often we neglect prayer and don’t talk to God but prayer is something that we should all do often and we should enjoy doing it. It is our communication with God, what an amazing thing that we are able to do. We can talk to the creator of the universe whenever we want and he listens every time. Yet we don’t do it so often.

As Nehemiah demonstrates there is great power in prayer and every Christian should strive to deepen their prayer life.