What's the Purpose of Prayer?Sample

In the Pie Chart that is your life, how big is the slice devoted to prayer?

I don’t ask to induce guilt or to point the finger of condemnation. It’s actually a question I’m asking myself, and it’s been prompted by a statistic I just bumped into once again:

Eleven percent of the book of Nehemiah is prayer.

Nehemiah does a significant amount of praying in these pages that bear his name. Because I’m making a concerted effort to let God breathe life into my own praying this year, I’ve spent some time re-reading Nehemiah’s words to the God of heaven. You’ll find them in Nehemiah 1:5-11; 2:4; 4:4-5; 5:19; 6:14; 13:14, 22, 29, 31.

I’ve noticed that Nehemiah’s prayer life can be understood in three categories or voices of prayer:
1) Arrow Prayers; (2) Remember Me Prayers; (3) I’ve HAD IT! Prayers.

Let’s look at all three together:

Arrow Prayers

If you take a look at the book of Nehemiah, you will see a rather lengthy prayer in chapter one, but after that, Nehemiah is a man on the move. His recorded prayers reflect that. They also demonstrate the fact that Nehemiah knew where to begin.

Oswald Chambers expresses this mindset very well:

"Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.”

Nehemiah had made prayer foundational to his conversation with King Artaxerxes in chapter one, but then in chapter two, he shot a final arrow-prayer before opening his mouth once the king had begun probing for information.

If only I could get that sequence imprinted on my own brain: Pray first. Speak second.

Remember Me Prayers

Nehemiah knew where to look for affirmation. Four different times, he prayed, “Remember me, O my God,” in reference to some work that he had accomplished for his people.

One of my sons has very big brown eyes, and I see them whenever I read Nehemiah’s “remember me” prayers. It didn’t matter whether he was crouched behind home plate or playing his saxophone with the band, my son’s eyes would be on us, his mum and dad, checking to make sure that we had seen him catch the pop fly or that we had heard his amazing tones. The whole audience was watching, but he wanted to be certain that we had seen.

Nehemiah did a lot of good for the people of Israel, and he could have shown off if he had wanted to. (I’m picturing place cards at his dining room table: “This sumptuous feast is provided courtesy of your governor.”) However, because his righteousness was done before God, it was God’s approval he sought.

Nehemiah foreshadows Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount because a thank you note or a flowery testimonial from his dinner guests just wouldn’t do it for Nehemiah.
Remember?
“For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.”
Nehemiah’s eyes were looking to “his Father who sees in secret.”

I’VE HAD IT Prayers

We’ve all been there.

"I’m so done with this situation, Lord! Help!”

In his commentary on the imprecatory psalms, Derek Kidner notes that this kind of harsh prayer from the mouths of biblical characters is typically a cry against injustice in which the speaker is asking God to take vengeance (rather than doing it himself). We really see this with Nehemiah’s words: “We look to you!” Once again, Nehemiah’s prayer life reveals that his eyes are in the right place.

Nehemiah made no claims of being a theologian, but his prayers reveal a doctrine of God based on a correct understanding of Scripture. In his chapter one prayer, he fully expects God to act consistently with His own nature and with His actions in the past. He cedes control of the situation to a Sovereign higher than the king he served, and he waits for God to act.

I’ve never spoken to anyone who was satisfied with his or her prayer life, but doing prayer is the only way to get better at it. Here is the challenge, then, from the life of an Old Testament builder:

• Is prayer the main thing or is it just a means to an end?
• Where are your eyes today?
• When you’ve HAD IT, do you pick up your phone to complain to a friend, snarl at your family, or lay the situation out before One who is sovereign and perfectly just?