A Picture Of Ceaseless Prayer

SCRIPTURE: Nehemiah 2:4-8

“The king said to me, ‘What is it you want?’ Then I prayed to the God of heaven, 5 and I answered the king, ‘If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it.’

 6 Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, ‘How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?’ It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.

 7 I also said to him, ‘If it pleases the king, may I have letters to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, so that they will provide me safe-conduct until I arrive in Judah? 8 And may I have a letter to Asaph, keeper of the king's forest, so he will give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple and for the city wall and for the residence I will occupy?’ And because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted my requests.”

OBSERVATION:

This  passage revealed something to me about prayer and relationship with God.  What really jumps out at me is the picture of a normal and ceaseless prayer life.  Paul talks about prayer without ceasing and about being in constant prayer.  We drum up pictures in out minds about what this looks like.  We imagine being locked up in a prayer closet for most of our day, we imagine walking around focusing on nothing but asking things from God...  Most humans being extreme are typically pulled to two possibilities - we can end up being so heavenly-minded that we are no earthly good, or we can think that ceaseless prayer is impossible so we don’t even try.  Nehemiah, shows us what ceaseless prayer looks like and it is rather normal.

“The King said to me, ‘What do you want?’  Then I PRAYED to the God of heaven and I answered the king.”  When you have the king’s attention you need God’s favor and you don’t have time for a half-hour worship set to get you there.  I love how it says that Nehemiah prayed and answered the king.  I don’t know, but I don’t think he rolled out a prayer carpet and knelt down in prayer for 10 minutes before answering.  I imagine it wen something like, “God help.”  or “Here we go God, do your thing.”  or “Holy Cow!  God, I can’t believe he just asked me what I want.  What should I say?”

APPLICATION:

I want my prayer life to be this normal.  I want to remember to quickly invite God into the “real time” conversations that I am having.  To pray “God help” in those spur-of-the-moment opportunities that have major implications and eternal consequences.  I am going to begin a habit of ceaseless prayer today.

PRAYER:  

Here we go God, do your thing.  In Jesus name - AMEN!