Brown's Daily Word 10-9-07

Good Morning,
This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in Him. Sometime last year while reading for my devotions, the passage for the day was this one in Nehemiah1:1. The words of Nehemiah, son of Hacaliah: In the month of Kislev (the 9th month of their year, Zech. 7:1) in the twentieth year, while I was in the citadel of Susa, 2 Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men." If you and I were writing this it would read more like, "In September of our twentieth year of captivity ..." -
(Kislev actually corresponds more with our month of December.) Nehemiah is saying, "Twenty years after the Persian invasion of Judah and the abduction of prisoners, my brother came to the palace and I asked him about the Jews left in Jerusalem. I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem."
Nehemiah asked about these people. He was concerned about their condition. Sometimes we do not know the needs others have because we have not asked. True, they could volunteer the information but the fact is often they do not. We don’t want to be nosy, and they don’t want to complain. It is a stand-off unless one side or the other breaks the silence. Take time to ask how someone is doing. You may be surprised - either for good or bad.
verse 3: They said to me, "Those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been burned with fire."
verse 4: "When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven."
We know nothing of prayer like that. What news would cause you to weep for others? (Especially those with whom you were only slightly acquainted.) They were in Jerusalem; he had been in exile for 20 years. How well could he have known them? What issue moves you to this degree? What is it that makes you cry? What would impress you to fast? Nehemiah mourned, fasted, and prayed for some days. A few? Several? It is an indiscriminate amount of time; a prolonged time. This is long, lengthy, prolonged, sustained prayer.
verse 5: "Then I said" . . . Then he began to pray. It is almost as though this marks the starting point of his praying. I wonder if he would consider the bulk of his praying until now to have been scattered prayers, a general unburdening of his soul of all he had heard. Then he began to pray. That is, then he got earnest with his prayer - he got down to business. He did not consider the "some days" of praying, fasting, and mourning as the body of his intercession, but merely as the introduction - the prologue- to his prayer. He was not concluding after some days. But instead, after some days he was just getting started. That unspecified period of time had been the warm-up phase of his praying.
We know nothing of this kind of praying. We give up if nothing happens after a few seconds of prayer. At the end of a week of praying we say, "I prayed about it for a whole week." We consider that long-term praying. We have been conditioned to microwave praying. We figure if nothing happens within a few minutes we are doing something wrong and need to change our strategy. We never even think about prayer in the same light as Nehemiah does. We don’t anticipate extended vigils in prayer. We don’t think at the outset of a problem that we may need to settle in and prepare for the long haul. We want quick answers to quick prayers. When we don’t see the answers we want, we question the value of prayer. We should question our failure to perceive microwave praying as a malady of our age and a flaw of human nature that God wishes to address in patient praying.
Saints of previous generations understood prayer to be a extended endeavor. They were prepared to settle in for seasons of prayer for stubborn situations. Read the works of E. M. Bounds and the biography of David Brainerd. Examine for yourself the kind of praying spoken of in the Scriptures.
2:1 In the month of Nisan (the 1st month of their year - 4 months later) in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. If you track this on a Jewish calendar you will find that this incident transpires four months after Nehemiah began to pray. He had not been sad in his presence before.
2 So the king asked me, "Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart." Why? Why had he not been sad in the king’s presence? Had he never had bad days? I suppose it’s possible, but it’s not likely, is it? I think it’s because he didn’t think it was a good thing to wear his feelings on his sleeve. Not a word in this whole book is said about whiners and complainers, but what is underscored for us is the fact that Nehemiah was not a whiny-baby. A point is made to spell it out for us; he had never been sad before the king.
No doubt the king did not want to be surrounded by a bunch of glum faces - so this may have been for job security - but the fact remains his behavior was so strikingly different from normal that it caught the king’s attention. Regardless, the burdens of others both physically and emotionally affected Nehemiah to the point he could no longer visibly conceal the effects of caring for others.
"I was very much afraid, but I said to the king, 'May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?' 4 The king said to me, 'What is it you want?' Then I prayed to the God of heaven".
It was a short, quick prayer silently thrown to the Lord. When the king asked what he wanted, he silently breathed a prayer as he formulated his response. I know that I have said a good deal about extended prayer, and now I am drawing attention to a very brief, unuttered prayer. It may seem like a contradiction but my intention is to show that if long seasons of prayer are our habit they will have bearing on those occasions when there is no time for a lengthy prayer. On the other hand we are woefully inept if the bulk of our praying is dependant upon brief moments of prayers.
Verse 5: "And I answered the king, 'If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it.' 6 Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, 'How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?' It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time. The 6th verse concludes, It pleased the king to send me. God granted my petition! He answered my prayer! I got what I prayed for! He had prayed to God for mercy for his people and God’s own blessing on his project to assist them.

Brown

Who Needs the Better Education?
These are real notes written by parents in a Tennessee school district... (spellings have been left intact.)

1. My son is under a doctor's care and should not take PE today. Please execute him.

2. Please exkuce lisa for being absent she was sick and i had her shot.

3. Dear school: please ecsc's john being absent on jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 and also 33.

4. Please excuse gloria from jim today. She is administrating.

5. Please excuse roland from p.e. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip.

6. John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face.

7. Car! lo! s was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in the growing part.

8. Megan could not come to school today because she has been bothered by very close veins.

9. Chris will not be in school cus he has an acre in his side.

10. Please excuse ray friday from school. He has very loose vowels.

11. Please excuse pedro from being absent yesterday. He had (diahre, dyrea, direathe), the runs. [note: words in ( )'s were crossed out]

12. Please excuse tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea, and his boots leak.

13. Irving was absent yesterday because he missed his bust.

14. Please excuse jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.

15. I kept billie home because she had to go christmas shopping because i don't know what size she wear.

16. ! Pl! ease excuse jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it monday. We thought it was sunday.

17. Sally won't be in school a week from friday. We have to attend her funeral.

18. My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired. She spent a weekend with the marines.

19. Please excuse jason for being absent yesterday. He had a cold and could not breed well. [Might be a good thing?]

20. Please excuse mary for being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.

21. Gloria was absent yesterday as she was having a gangover.

22. Please excuse brenda. She has been sick and under the doctor.

Now we know why parents are screaming for better education for our kids. They too may be parents some day!