The Nehemiah Rule: Pray Before You Plan

Do you have a spiritual Achilles heel, the issue where you most often come back to God asking for forgiveness and re-direction? Right now, I am confessing mine to all of you, in hope it will help all of us.

I REGULARLY make my plans before I pray.

I am a confirmed Type-A personality, the kind of ridiculous mess of a person who spends too much time under the delusion the future of mankind rests on my aging, narrow shoulders. So, I plan, I make lists, and I get everything in place the way I want it. Then, I go to God and ask for His blessing on my wisdom.

You know the end of the story, hopefully not from experience. My plan crashes, and I go and ask God “WHY?”

I do have a better plan these days, and it comes straight from Nehemiah 1.

King Artaxerxes’s cupbearer Nehemiah is an emotional wreck because his once proud hometown is a wreck. Jerusalem has been reduced to ruins by an all-out attack of the Babylonians. It’s basically a city of rubble. Think Beirut or the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans and you have the picture. Only a fraction of the population is still living in the city, and they are on the brink of eradication.

Most people would have taken either one of two courses of action. They would have thrown up their hands and done nothing, or ridden to Jerusalem as fast as possible and tried in their own power to do the impossible—revive a city and a civilization.

Nehemiah does neither.

When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. I mourned for a number of days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven. I said, LORD God of heaven, the great and awe-inspiring God who keeps His gracious covenant with those who love Him and keep His commands, let Your eyes be open and Your ears be attentive to hear Your servant’s prayer that I now pray to You day and night for Your servants, the Israelites. I confess the sins we have committed against You. Both I and my father’s house have sinned. We have acted corruptly toward You and have not kept the commands, statutes, and ordinances You gave Your servant Moses. Please remember what You commanded Your servant Moses: ‘[If] you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples. But if you return to Me and carefully observe My commands, even though your exiles were banished to the ends of the earth, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place where I chose to have My name dwell.’ They are Your servants and Your people. You redeemed [them] by Your great power and strong hand. Please, Lord, let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and to that of Your servants who delight to revere Your name. Give Your servant success today, and have compassion on him in the presence of this man.

Nehemiah 1: 4-10

He cries. He mourns. He fasts. He prays. He confesses. He asks for a great act from The Creator. And Nehemiah prays to his God, Yahweh, in such an intensely personal manner that you know this servant in a strange land is talking to his Father. There is no small talk. It’s simply a case of a man pouring out his heart to his only Hope, asking God to guide him to do the impossible.

You know the rest of the story. (If you don’t, be sure and read the entire book of Nehemiah—it’s a page-turner.) Fifty-two days later, the wall is rebuilt in a miraculous, God-breathed way. There are daily trials and tribulations, but God wins and Nehemiah and the remnant in Jerusalem are in awe of what He has done. Jerusalem has been restored, and the way has been paved for the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which culminates in and around this place.

What does this mean for you? Many of you are Nehemiah. You are crying out for an entire generation to be restored to the church. The walls are down. Your hope is at low ebb. But you have a passion to reach people 18 to 34 years old. You believe His plan is for these people to come to know Christ and for them not to be locked outside His church.

Cry. Mourn. Pray. Fast. Go to God for His plan.

Please know the Threads team is right there with you.

Let’s adopt the Nehemiah Rule together.