Studies on Prayer: Vol. 3Näide

Praying with Purpose

The Assyrians swept through Israel, taking captive the Jewish nation. All that the Jewish prophets had warned about had come to pass. Around two or three million Jews were deported from the Promised Land and spent seventy years separated from the temple and the life God had planned for them. Later, the Babylonians would conquer the Assyrians and rule over the captives from Israel. The first Jews to return numbered only about fifty thousand. The vast majority, about ninety-eight percent, of the Jewish nation chose to stay where they were. They considered the Promised Land their history rather than their future. When the early refugees returned, they planned to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem and the temple, but the current residents of the area were threatened and resisted the efforts of the Jews.

The wall and the temple continued to lie in rubble. Nehemiah was a Jew who had risen to an influential position under Persian rule. He heard of the struggles of his fellow Jews in Jerusalem and wanted to help. The story of Nehemiah is one of the best examples in Scripture of answered prayer, as God and man work together.

1. When, if ever, have you felt called to a time of fasting and prayer similar to Nehemiah’s? Do you think of fasting in order to pray as an important spiritual discipline? Why or why not?

2. When the king asks Nehemiah to make his request, what does Nehemiah do before speaking (Nehemiah 2:4)? Read Jeremiah 33:3. Why is this a valuable lesson for our own lives?

3. Read Nehemiah 2:7–10. How does this passage teach the mutual relationship between God and man? From verse 10, what can we expect as we seek to find favor with both God and man?

"I have seen many men work without praying, though I have never seen any good come out of it; but I have never seen a man pray without working." —James Hudson Taylor