Nehemiah 1:5
is the start of Nehemiah’s prayer. “O Lord God of Heaven,” he cries, “the great
and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him
and keep his commandments.”
His
acknowledgement here is for the place of God, the power of God, the wonder of
God, and absolute Sovereignty of God in his life, which brings us to the question,
which we ask deep in our hearts, as the Psalmist does in Psalm 8:4, beholding
the heavens, and all the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars which
God has set in place, why is He is mindful of us, caring for us, being there
for us?
At the start
of his prayer Nehemiah reminds us, that regardless of our circumstances we
should be actively seeking that covenant relationship with God. Because, as we
read in James 4:8, if we draw near to God, he will draw near to us.
That’s quite
a thought isn’t it?
Here I am
reminded of Ruth, one of my favourite books in the Bible, where Ruth says to
Naomi in chapter 1:16: “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following
you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people
shall be my people, and your God my God.”
This is a
statement full of feeling that deep sense of belonging to something so much bigger
than yourself. If Ruth were to leave Naomi where would she go? What would she
be? Where would she belong?
Where you go
I go, she says, you are family. My heart is here, with you. I mean something,
here, with you.
Nehemiah
expresses very much the same thing at the start of his prayer. These people are
my people, he is saying, they are worth weeping over. He is suddenly reminded
of that when he hears the news of their situation. He is suddenly reminded that
perhaps he is closer to them than his current geographical and cultural situation
would indicate.
Nehemiah,
like Ruth, reminds us that we are all part of a community, we all belong
somewhere. Or, that we all want to belong somewhere. What Nehemiah starts to
pray connects him with the God who cares, the God who wants us to be His
people, who wants to see us rejoicing in Him.
And if I do
what I am told to do, then I am not going to go wrong. Nehemiah weeps because
he knows he and his father’s haven’t done what they were told. He has drifted
from his purpose.
He has
drifted away from the Word of God in his life. He has lost at least a part of that
sense of “I belong,” and in that moment he hears the news he realises what he
has lost, what he values more than anything else.
That sense
of belonging.