The Spine of An Active and Effective Prayer
There are times in life that take us by surprise and throw us for a loop. Often we don’t understand why situations happen the way that they do, and we feel confused why we find ourselves in such messes. Our natural mind would tell us that the Christian soul should be able to skate free through life with a breeze. It should be simple, right? Shouldn’t the person who fears the Lord have things go easy? Good people deserve to have an easy life, right?
On the contrary, the soul that follows the Lord can expect to have hardships. God’s own word even braces us for this news, as it says “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.” Psalm 34:19.
In my experiences I have found that in the most intense times of afflictions, my prayer life learns how to become that much more effective. Yes, afflictions are difficult to face, but when a believer has the Lord on his or her side, there is a power source of defense that one can run to. I have noticed that through the years, the moments that press you the hardest on every side are the ones where you learn to pray the most real prayers, prayers that are so earnest that words aren’t necessary to be expressed. Hardships teach you to pray honestly to the Lord in ways that aren’t sugar coated with flowers and rosy language, the words and phrases that some Christians feel might impress the heart of God. Instead, these moments of intense afflictions teach us how to pray intense prayers. We learn to get right to the point, exposing our hearts bare before our maker, expressing the emotion of our spirit within us. The times that I’ve spent hanging out in God’s throne room praying, are the most intimate, satisfying, and rewarding times of life.
I was reading in my devotion time about Nehemiah, a man who faced intense issues and adversities. I highly suggest reading the book if you currently find yourself going toe-to-toe with the enemy. When I read it this time through, God once more showed me how dependable He is to the soul that puts his or her confidence in His name. To condense the point, Nehemiah was given a job to do by the Lord. He was put on a mission to oversee the rebuilding of Jerusalem. After proposing his mission to a group of men who would assist him in the task, opposition quickly arose, trying to halt God’s purpose. I continued to read that there were naysayers and mouth flabbers that came to discourage Nehemiah and defeat him from accomplishing his God-given task. Sounds like things haven’t changed much.
Nehemiah 2:19
But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?
Nehemiah put this slander to rest, saying that God would let him prosper, and that he was going to build whether the two liked it or not. He wasn’t interested in the naysayer’s opinions, and boldly spoke that they had no inheritance with him in the matter. Then Nehemiah’s men began the great work of rebuilding the broken city. What an honor to be commissioned by the Lord of heaven to rebuild His holy city! A noble cause, I suppose Nehemiah would have been filled with both purpose and humbleness that God had chosen him to do this great work. The people went to work. Things were progressing and moving forward. The wall was being rebuilt, and what an exciting sight to behold. But… it wasn’t very long before they heard from the two troublemakers again.
Nehemiah 4:1-3
Now when Sanballat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he jeered at the Jews. And he said in the presence of his brothers and of the army of Samaria, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore it for themselves? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that?” Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!”
Trash talk hurts. I suppose if I lived back then, and someone told me that a little fox’s footprints would break down my hard work, I’d probably be discouraged too. These two men decided to lash out with their words to discourage the people’s work. The one who said “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” must of lived in a bubble. Smack talk can be hard to handle. Just like the same enemy you and I fight in our modern-day world, slander and discouragement from this enemy hurt the construction team’s high hopes. Nehemiah took things straight to the Lord.
Nehemiah 4:4-5
Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn back their taunt on their own heads and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from your sight, for they have provoked you to anger in the presence of the builders.
They continued to build. Nehemiah was such an honorable leader to keep his team focused through these difficulties. Heart is one thing that is hard to keep strong sometimes, but he was able to lead the construction crew on in their efforts.
Nehemiah 4:7-8 But when Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry. And they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it.
Sometimes when we read the Bible we tend to downplay the events that had taken place. We don’t put ourselves into the account so as to see and feel the real essence of what was going on. Although Nehemiah had done his best to rally the crew, now things were getting intense. One might say that things were falling apart. In verse 9, Nehemiah prays to the Lord. He sets a guard. He realizes there is a danger involved in obeying the Lord’s call. But that’s also when things got worse.
Immediately afterwards, verse 10 tells us that it was rumored in Judah that their strength was falling. People were letting talk go around town, and they were saying their building stones weren’t good enough quality. The talk of the town was that the task couldn’t be done. Verse 11 tells us that the enemies figured they would just come and kill the workers, rendering the work incomplete. Moreover, verse 12 says that even Jewish people from all around came asking the workers to stop building and just come back home. How incredibly discouraging! It’s one thing to have an enemy taunt you, but when your own people come to you asking you to stop, wow, major heartbreak.
The people helping poor Nehemiah began to be afraid. Opposition does that to us. It was warranted. There was an angry enemy trying to discourage anything they did. Not only that, but their own flesh and blood, the remnant of the Jewish people that were not taken captive, came to them in discouragement, saying return to us. Nehemiah was active against this. He charged the people to stand and be brave, to fight for their brothers, and to continue the work. Nehemiah had a clear focus that God was able to complete the purpose He had planted inside him. Once again he pleaded to the people not to fear, but to remember the Lord.
God frustrated the enemy’s work. The people returned to their construction. Instead of backing down, Nehemiah went to the Lord for help, and then equipped the workers with weapons for defense. He set a guard. They worked with their weapons. None of them took off their clothes when they slept; they kept a weapon in their hand.
So put yourself in this situation. Maybe you are already there. You might already be in a place where the enemy has spoke lies to you over and over telling you that you are not capable of doing the task God has given you to do. You might be afraid when the enemy rears his ugly head. You might be stressed from every side as other people tell you it’s not worth it, come back home, stop working like this for the Lord. What would you have done in Nehemiah’s position? What are you doing in your own?
In all honesty, Nehemiah and his band of merry men were not strong enough to defend themselves. The brutish war machine that opposed them could of easily taken them out.
The thing about Nehemiah, was that he wasn’t afraid to stand on the Lord. He knew how to run to the Lord. He knew his only confidence was in his God. He knew how to just cut to the chase and instead of talking fluff with God, expose to Him the fears and worries and be real with Him. There was no hiding the fact that there was no defense for Nehemiah and his team of workers except the Lord Himself. There was no way they could defend themselves against the enemy.
That, is the exact situation the Lord seems to love to show up in.
Later on in chapter 6, Nehemiah received letters from his enemy with false accusations. Reading it, he once more hears the threat of his enemy in the voice of fear and lies. The letters said that he intended to rebel. They said that he only wished to become king. They said that he had falsely set up prophets among the people who would speak of making him king. All these things were intended to use fear as the weapon against Nehemiah and his band of merry men. The enemy couldn’t stand what was going on, didn’t want the work to continue, and was using every tactic to halt God’s plan and purpose.
Sound familiar?
Let’s learn from Nehemiah. His prayer was real. His words matched his heart. The Lord saw Nehemiah’s heart. God answered him in big ways. He took care of the trash talkers and defended those who were carrying out His mission. Nehemiah wasn’t afraid to pray prayers that worked. Ones that don’t paint rosy-red pictures of a cartoon enemy that he found himself toe-to-toe with. He simply laid it out like it was.
Vs. 9: But now, O God, strengthen my hands.
Vs. 14: Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid.
There are times in our lives when we are afraid of what the enemy is showing us. It has happened over and over in my life, and I’m sure it will happen over and over in yours. The enemy doesn’t play fair. He’s not ashamed to cheat, lie, and steal from you. He will trash talk in your face, and use even the closest people around us to discourage us if we (and they) aren’t careful. When the enemy waves the “letters” in our face, what are we supposed to do with it? The papers that he waves, the signs that he taunts us with, the threats that he uses to shut us down… do we really need to pay all these the time of day?
There is somewhere we can run. Just like Nehemiah, David also knew how to run to the Lord in prayer. Some of the most intense and earnest prayers written in the Bible were wrote when he was running for his life, and written in great adversity. We have promises in scripture that we can stand on. Psalm 34, Psalm 25, and Psalm 57 all are places to run to for solid ground. These can be used as closet prayers, those that only God Himself needs to hear and know about.
God stood up for Nehemiah and defended him. The work was finished. God accomplished what He planned, and nobody, not even the war machine, could stop Him. God hears the prayers of the destitute. God looks at the heart. You might not think that you can “pray” like other people you see at church. You might not know the “language” like they do. But the man or woman that depends on God will not be put to shame, because that’s what God looks at. Your earnest cry and expectation will grip God’s heart because He loves you. He cares for you. He wants to be there for you.
It’s time to ask Him.
The spine of an active prayer is found in the intent and sincerity of the heart.
By Chuck Carr