What Is the Prayer of Nehemiah in Nehemiah 1
In Nehemiah 1, we read that Nehemiah, upon learning of Jerusalem's desolation, was so deeply troubled that he entered a season of prayer and fasting lasting 16 weeks. The prayer we have recorded in chapter 1 is a summary of his (many!) prayers throughout that time. While most of us won’t immediately start praying for 16 weeks, we can all learn something about prayer from Nehemiah’s example.
What Are the Three Elements of True Prayer?
Specifically, we see the three primary elements of true prayer: (1) adoration of God, (2) acknowledgment of our sin, and (3) an appeal based on God’s promises.
1. Why Does True Prayer Begin with Adoration of God? (vv. 5–6)
Prayer always begins with a vision of who God is. You’ll never pray rightly until you see God rightly. What does Nehemiah declare specifically about God? In verse 5, he says that God is a God who keeps his covenant, a God who is filled with steadfast, unchanging, never-giving-up love; a God who is attentive and aware of what’s happening to his people.
A.W. Tozer famously said that what you think when you think about God is the most important thing about you, because it determines everything else in your life. How you see God determines what you ask for from him, and, just as importantly, how you respond when he doesn’t do things exactly as you think he should.
How do you see God when you are praying to him? When you close your eyes in prayer, what expression do you imagine on his face? Is it the face of an angry judge? A disappointed father? A God too busy with other things to be bothered by your unimportant life? Jesus gave us a very different picture of the Father. He’s a God so attentive to us, he said, that he knows when a single hair falls from our heads. He’s a Father so in love with us that, even after we sinned, he kept looking our way with his arms open, filled with mercy, love, and forgiveness. He’s a God who never stops looking at us that way, even when we wander, ready to receive us when we turn to him.
In Nehemiah’s day, it was tragically true that Israel had sinned and been driven into exile. But Nehemiah knew that the discipline they were receiving from God wasn’t the full story. He saw a God who was full of compassion and never-changing love, full of forgiveness and tenderness, a God who came running to his people with mercy in his eyes.
What you think when you think about God is the most important thing about you because it determines everything else about you—including what you ask for in prayer.
2. Why Does Prayer Include Acknowledgment and Confession of Sin? (vv. 6–7)
In verse 6, Nehemiah confesses both his own sins and those of his people, then pleads for God’s mercy. It’s important to note that Nehemiah doesn’t come with a list of requirements, demanding that God owes him something. I point that out because one of the hardest things for me to learn in prayer is to let go of the demands I make on what I think God owes me. Often, my prayers sound like, “God, you know, I’m the righteous one here. I did everything right, and now you owe me; it would be wrong of you not to give this to me.” That’s not where Nehemiah starts—because it’s not true.
The truth is, like Nehemiah, we are not blameless. Our lives have been filled with sin, selfishness, idolatry, inconsistency, and unbelief. Appealing to our own righteousness in prayer is like trying to cash a huge check from an account with insufficient funds.
When my kids turned 16, I gave each of them a small credit card tied to my account that they could use in emergencies. Emphasis on emergency. Recently, we discovered that one of my daughters had accidentally linked her Starbucks app to my credit card (I must have put it in there when we set up her account), and somehow it got set to auto-reload. For weeks, she was happily going to Starbucks several times a week, simply amazed that her account never seemed to be running dry.
Meanwhile, I’m reviewing my credit card statement, seeing all these charges, and thinking, “I’ve really got to talk to Veronica about her caffeine habit.” Eventually, we figured it out, though, and selected my daughter’s debit card as the source for the reload. All is right with the world again, except that her Starbucks runs have gotten a lot less frequent—because her account usually hovers around $0.
God actually invites you to do the opposite. Your “worthiness” account, like my daughter’s checking account, hovers right around 0 … but Jesus’ grace is an infinite supply. To which God says, “Switch the cards on your payment plan to mine. Appeal to my grace, not your goodness. Because that’s a never-ending supply.”
So, in prayer, I say, “God, I don’t have any right to demand anything of you. But you’re a good Father, and your grace toward me is of infinite supply, so I’m asking because of that.” You’ll find that’s an account where there’s always sufficient funds.
The Old Testament commentator Derek Kidner says, “After adoring God's infinite highness and confessing our smallness, we realize God owes us nothing, and therefore we come empty-handed.” But our God loves to fill empty hands.
3. How Can We Pray According to God’s Promises (vv. 8–9)
Nehemiah quotes directly from Deuteronomy 9:29 in his prayer, saying, God, you said through Moses, '... though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there. … [God,] remember your word …” (Nehemiah 1:9, 8). The prayers that start in heaven are heard by heaven. I can’t emphasize this enough: Don’t just read your way through your Bible, pray your way through it. They say the Bible contains about 3,000 promises; don’t leave any unclaimed. Note whatever promises you see in the Scripture and pray them over yourself, your family, your church.
I wear a bracelet with the reference Jeremiah 32:40 on it. It’s a promise that says, “And I will make with your children an everlasting covenant, and I will never stop doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.” On dark days, when I’m worried or discouraged, I say, “God, You said … remember your Word!”
Pastor J.D. completed his Ph.D. in Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Chick-fil-A, serves as a Council member for The Gospel Coalition, and recently served as the 62nd president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Pastor J.D. and his wife Veronica are raising four awesome kids.
"Editor's Note: Pastor JD Greear's "Ask the Pastor" column regularly appears at Christianity.com, providing biblical, relatable, and reliable answers to your everyday questions about faith and life. Email him your questions at [email protected]."
Was this resource helpful? Add Christianity.com as a trusted source for Biblical content.
