| NEHEMIAH CHAPTERS 1 AND 2 (Click here to read the Chapter) There is so much that Nehemiah can teach all of us but especially in his attitude towards prayer. We see him in these chapters many times in prayer to God and in all kinds of situations. He most certainly didn't restrict his praying to morning and evenings - he prayed whenever and wherever he felt the need to do so. From reading these chapters it becomes apparent of his faith in the power of prayer and his belief that God would not let him down and that when the time was right God would answer his prayer. Even in our lives today it is no different now than it was then and the power of prayer is still evident to those who continually turn to God throughout their Christian journey rather than attempting to do things their way. However to get to the stage whereby we put ourselves completely in God's hands, as Nehemiah did, we will, needless to say, have to pass over many hurdles on the way. With each hurdle we go over we are paving the way for strengthening our relationship with God and of learning to rely more and more on the power and love of God through the Holy Spirit. When I look at how positively Nehemiah approached the problem with the rebuilding of Jerusalem it makes me challenge myself as to whether my own faith would compare to Nehemiah's. I know there have been many times that I have not totally put myself in God's hands when I have needed help or advice. I have subsequently suffered needlessly as a consequence of my lack of faith and confidence in God's capabilities. However to look on the brighter side of this, the moment I have opened up my heart to God I have immediately felt His peace within and any doubt that I had disappeared and I knew that He would never let me down. Prayer is a vital part of our relationship with God and is a time when we are able to personally talk with Him. However owing to personal commitments and people's lifestyles nowadays it is not always possible for some Christians to have regular prayer sessions. Some will spend many hours in a day in prayer whereas others will perhaps spend an hour or less each day. To this end it is not the amount of hours that we spend in prayer but our sincerity when we do spend time in prayer and that we are willing to open our hearts and minds to all that God has to say to us. We do have to be so careful, however, that our prayer life doesn't become more of a habit as opposed to a real need to talk to our Father in heaven. We all go through periods when we may find it so hard to pray and our minds may go blank but at least we have been assured that the Holy Spirit will intercede on our behalf as He knows what we are feeling and He also knows our needs. The best way of dealing with this problem, I feel, is to be totally honest with God and to express our true feelings to Him - let us never forget how special God is to each and every one of us and He is not only our Father in Heaven but He is also our friend to whom we can talk to about anything and everything at any time. He knows each of us personally by name and loves us all the same. We are all individuals and we all have our own way of conversing with God and there is no right or wrong way. We see that Nehemiah on many occasions prayed spontaneously. One of these times was when he was confronted by the King at a time when he was looking sad. He was not ashamed to admit his fear with regard to Judah even though the King could have had him executed for showing such feelings. It may be that you are at present going through a time of fear of what you feel God has asked you to do - if so take that fear to God in prayer and experience his presence and peace in your heart. I have only recently begun to exercise spontaneous prayer in addition to my usual prayer sessions. We have to remember that we are not restricted when we can talk to God - it can be anywhere and anytime whether it be on a bus, train, aeroplane, in the car or around the house - we don't need to close our eyes to be able to talk to God so we can in fact actually talk to God all day long if we so desire. He has made himself available for us 24 hours a day and no matter how trivial we may feel our problem is, it is never too trivial that God will not listen to us, in fact it is important that we do take everything to God in prayer and lay our burdens at His feet in order to lighten our own load. To conclude, just as God used Nehemiah to help rebuild the wall surrounding Judah he wants to use each of us for his own purpose but we must first ensure that we listen to what he is telling us but even more so that we obey Him when we are being led in a particular direction. It is easy to be frightened of the unknown but one thing we can be sure of is that if we are going in the direction that God is asking then he will ensure that we are equipped all the way and we need never fear along the way, in other words put our full trust in God as Nehemiah did in this month's reading. God Bless you and see you again at the end of February. Chris |
| MY DEVOTIONAL FOR JANUARY 2003 |
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