Context No. 3482 of 4322 · Nehemiah

Nehemiah 2:1-5: in context

1In the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, I picked up the wine, and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad before in his presence. 2The king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart.” Then I was very much afraid. 3I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why shouldn’t my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates have been consumed with fire?” 4Then the king said to me, “What is your request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may build it.”

Nehemiah, cupbearer to the king, cannot hide his grief over ruined Jerusalem, and when the king notices and asks why he looks so sad, Nehemiah is afraid, for showing sorrow before the king was dangerous. But he speaks honestly of the city lying in ruins, its gates burned with fire.

And then the king asks the crucial question: what are you requesting? And here is a beautiful detail: before answering, Nehemiah prays. In the split second between the king's question and his own reply, he sends up a silent prayer to the God of heaven, and then makes his request. It is a picture of a life so habitually turned toward God that even in a tense, high-stakes moment, his first instinct is to pray. That instant, unspoken prayer, breathed in the middle of an ordinary conversation, reveals a heart in constant communion with God. We too can learn to send up such quick, silent prayers in the pressured moments of our days, before we speak or act.

In the pressured, high-stakes moments of my day, is my instinct, like Nehemiah's, to breathe a silent prayer to God before I speak or act?

Sources

Nehemiah 2:4: "Then the king said to me, What is your request? So I prayed to the God of heaven."
Nehemiah 2:2: "Then I was very much afraid."
Nehemiah 2:5: "I ask that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may build it."