0017 The Power of Anguish Pt. 2

Have you ever carried a burden so heavy that you didn't know what to do with it?

You prayed.

You waited.

You sat with it.

And then suddenly… an opportunity appeared.

The question is:

Would you be ready when the door opened?

In this episode of the Biblical Passages Podcast, Brittany and Eric continue the story of Nehemiah and discover that his anguish wasn't the end of the story—it was only the beginning.

After four months of praying, fasting, and carrying a burden for a city he'd never even seen, Nehemiah finds himself standing before the most powerful man in the world: the king of Persia.

One question changes everything:

"What do you request?"

Through this remarkable story, Brittany and Eric unpack what happens when God begins to move on behalf of the burdens He has placed in our hearts.

Together, they explore:

• Why some burdens refuse to leave us alone
 • The significance of Nehemiah serving as the king's cupbearer
 • Why God often prepares our hearts long before He opens a door
 • The importance of having an answer when opportunity finally arrives
 • What it means that Nehemiah prayed in the middle of a conversation
 • Why we cannot manufacture intimacy with God in moments of crisis
 • How God often provides resources in ways we never expected
 • Why opposition after an open door doesn't necessarily mean you're on the wrong path
 • The difference between walking by analysis and walking by faith
 • How ordinary people become part of extraordinary assignments

This episode also asks a deeply personal question:

What breaks your heart?

Because throughout Scripture, God often begins His greatest works by placing a burden inside someone's heart.

A burden for a city.

A burden for a people.

A burden for justice.

A burden for healing.

A burden for restoration.

And sometimes, the very thing that keeps you awake at night…

may be the thing God is inviting you to help rebuild.

If you've been carrying something that won't leave you alone, if you've been wondering why a particular issue keeps stirring your heart, or if you're waiting for God to open a door, this conversation will encourage you to stay faithful in the waiting.

Because when God's timing meets a prepared heart…

a single question can change everything.

"What do you request?"

Join Brittany and Eric as they explore how prayer, faith, and holy burdens often become the starting point for God's greatest assignments in our lives.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Hi guys, welcome back to the Biblical Passages Podcast, where biblical wisdom meets real life application. I'm so glad that you're here to join us today. Last week we started talking about a man named Nehemiah. We unpacked the power of anguish, which uh is very intense. If you haven't listened to that, please go back and listen to that first. And how his whole story, it starts with a not with a plan really, not with any resources, but with a burden that he just couldn't shake. And we ended up with him weeping, with him fasting, with him praying. But today we get to see what happens next because the burden wasn't the end of the story, really, Eric. You know, I would say that's just the beginning, wouldn't you say?

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Uh oh, absolutely. This is a fascinating story. But again, as you just pointed out, it starts with a man who is in anguish about the conditions back in his original hometown. Now he's not been there, he's an exile, but he has these people have a patriarchal view of life and they're they're thinking back generations, and he's broken over the situation and being reminded, if you will, about the situation when his uh countrymen come to visit him.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Right. So we all know I love my questions at the beginning of the episode, so I'm gonna ask, have you ever felt like you were carrying something heavy for a long time? And I mean you're praying about it, you're sitting with it, it's just on your heart. And there was just one door that that needed to be opened, but it wasn't in your control. Essentially, that's where we're at right now. Nehemiah had that moment, but I kind of want to talk about the backstory of Nehemiah and how important and how far away he was from the situation. Um, because if I was this far away from a situation and I was thinking, you know, oh, I want to help, I'd be like, I don't know how this is gonna happen. And I think that's what we want to see in this story. So Nehemiah was a cupbearer to the king. Why is that important, Eric? What was a cupbearer back then?

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Oh, that was to be dramatic, liquid assassination was the was a poisoning liquids was a preferred method of assassination uh back then. And to be the cupbearer, you're just one step away from a live king versus a dead king. And so that was an essential uh position, and you better look happy and upbeat and joyful because if you're not, you might have something on your mind that is bothering you and bothering your conscience. So uh that that's a lead-in to the story. It's it's seems to me originally trivial, but I've I've developed this habit of stopping, slowing down, pumping the brakes, and saying, wait a minute, why does the look on his face bother the king? Why is it noticed? And it becomes important here.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Right. So essentially the cutbearer, that's somebody who's going to take the wine to the king and don't they taste it first to make sure that there's nothing wrong with it?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, it's a good point. You've seen that in movies where they take they take a taste first, and so it's uh it's a yeah, that is proof.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

So they need to look happy because if somebody is coming to bring me a drink and they're not looking happy and I know that they're responsible for my life, I'm gonna be concerned.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Okay, makes sense then.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

All right, so um, he's standing in front of this king, King Xerxes, which is one of the most powerful kings right then. And the Bible says in Nehemiah 2, verses 1 and 2, in the 20th year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. Probably a good thought there. Therefore, the king said to me, Why is your face sad since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. So I became dreadfully afraid. Man, I'd be pretty nervous in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

But again, again, the backstory is his countrymen come to visit him and tell him the story about the the walls of Jerusalem were broken down. I mean, that was eyewitness accounts. And it's one thing if if if uh Nehemiah was aware of it or knew that it had happened, but this is a real life contemporary story and report about the condition. And as you say, he sat down, wept, fasted, prayed. It was uh it was a it was an a moment of anguish, and actually it probably took a good while because they visited in one month, and it was four months later when this story that you just read happened next. And so it was uh so that's I think setting the stage for our good listeners is important. So Nehemiah just didn't throw a little prayer of thanks for the Thanksgiving dinner, hope my son Socrative wins the game. And no, this was uh this was a broken-hearted prayer. And the the Lord had already told us in the in the in the book of Chronicles, you know, if my people called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hear from heaven and I'm gonna heal their land. Remember, that's do what? Heal their land, not just give them what they they want for their family, heal their land, which in this case would be to repair the situations that had caused the breakdown of the of the country of Judah in the first place, and Jerusalem being the headquarters to uh the capital. So this is just setting the stage for the folks who are listening that this is this is what was going on. This is this is not some trivial story about the Middle East uh 400 years before Jesus. This is a vital, uh this is a vital report. And Nehemiah was appointed by the Lord uh to uh to accomplish something mighty and tremendous. That's what we're trying to get into here today.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

So essentially, to bring this to 2026, this can happen to anybody. This is somebody who has their heart pierced by by maybe they see somebody, a homeless person on the corner, and all of a sudden their heart is for homeless people, but they don't quite know how to help. Or you see my particular one when I was 13, 14 years old, all the way up. I have had a heart for pregnant teens. Whenever I saw a pregnant teen just be kind of outcast from our church at one point in time, that settled in my heart young. And I remember trying to think like and being in anguish about it of like, how do these people feel? Why is nobody helping them? I don't understand. And just having a heart to go, how can I be of service there? How can I do this? So essentially that's what Nehemiah had. He saw his countrymen and all this land that was just in utter ruins, and his heart was just in anguish for this, but he didn't know what to do.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

You've already touched on something so powerful. And I would invite our listeners to be honest and take a pause. Is there something that you're in anguish over? Like Brittany was in anguish about pregnant teens. Nehemiah was in anguish about his country. Hannah, we talked about last time, was in anguish that she didn't have a son, and she promised to dedicate him to the Lord. He became the prophet Samuel, for goodness sake. And so, you know, there there are stories, other stories about anguish in the Bible, and even in our lives, contemporary and contemporary lives. Take a moment to realize what is it that breaks your heart, whether it's about society or about uh people that are in poverty or somebody that's in some desperate situation, and ask you could you can put that up to the Lord and say, Lord, I'm I'm not sure what to do or how to do it. I don't have the resources, but you do. And it's and this is the kind of situation that uh that I know breaks your heart, and I'm saying it's breaking mine. And I'm asking you, can we cooperate on solving this problem? That kingdom come in earth as it is in heaven. I want to bring your kingdom down to earth, and I want to implement some solutions by your will, by your resources. Uh, not on my own. I don't want to do it out of iniquity, I don't want to do it out of self-will. I want to I want to cooperate with heaven itself and uh show me how. So right away, we've only been into this you know eight minutes, and and already I think we've landed on something that brings value to people who are who can honestly say, I've been in anguish and I didn't know what to do. The knees uh Nehemiah story has meaning for them in this year right now.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Absolutely. We can put ourselves in Nehemiah's shoes of going, okay, I'm in anguish about this. Now let's watch what God does. So Nehemiah, he comes to the king, comes with his cup, he's looking sad, he's looking troubled. You know, that's that's no joke because this isn't, oh, you know, your job's on the line if you don't, if you're not coming in here looking all smiling happy. Like your life may be on the line. You can't come looking like that. And everything that he's been carrying, all this anguish, all the prayers, it comes down to one question from the king. And the king just looks at him and he's like, Why is your face sad because you're not sick? Like, we gotta figure this out because we're about to line you up and get you out of here.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

You better have a decent answer that makes sense, and it's not gonna be all fruit frivolous and everything. You gotta have a a point, uh, an answer that's on point. And uh and Nehemiah says something uh before before he gets before he gets going with his request. He says, May the king live forever. Right. So that's the degree of crazy. No, no, and I'm not trying to kill you either. So may the king live forever. And then uh and then he says, uh, he goes on to say, Why should my face be not be sad when the city, the place of my father's tombs, lies waste and its gates are burned with fire. He's painted a picture in one sentence about the condition of Nehemiah, excuse me, uh Arta Xerxes knows that he is an ex an exile who's worked his way up into this particular job. And so he's asking, What's up? And he says, you know, I am of another race, I am from another homeland, and even though I've never lived there, I care about where I came from, where my forefathers came from. And I really am concerned, it's broken my heart. And so then the king asks one more question. He says, What do you request? Now, this is this is what executives say. You know, when you're dealing with a senior executive, whether it's political, governmental, whether it's business, whether it's in the church, I'm talking about somebody in a senior leadership position, whatever title they use. Uh you be ready with an answer, is what we're learning here. And and uh 1 Peter tells us, be ready with an answer when people ask you about your faith, about your life, about your belief system. Be ready. And so we all ought to. Here's the second thing I would say we should take away. Do you do you have an answer for the faith that lies within your heart? Is it why did you convert from being a you know a uh a science major Eric to uh to a believer in in the in the Lord Jesus? How did you go from rational intellectual analysis to this mysterious thing called faith? Be ready with an answer. And so here's uh uh here's the situation that Nehemiah is in. And fortunately, he has prepared for this moment, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:38

So the king says to him, What do you request? And the most important part, I feel like to myself at least, is what Nehemiah does in this moment. And I think we all need to learn how to reflex this. When he's asked by the king, what do you request? The Bible says, So I prayed to the God of heaven. In that moment, when he was asked a question, even though he was in conversation, he needed to have an answer fast. This is a no joke, no, no time to play around. The king is asking you a question, you're not looking happy, you're already a little nervous about what's going to happen, but he stops to pray. His priorities and his alignment was in the right direction to where God could move. And a lot of the times I feel like we get in those human moments of somebody asking a question or saying something to us, or we have to make a decision. And before we get aligned with God, we align with ourselves on what we think we should do.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Yes, our feelings, our our analysis and or our our own personal desires, our will. And no, he he aligned himself. Good point. There's a third point right there. He immediately aligned himself with the Lord. Now, you see, are you talking about a 10-minute prayer here? Are we talking about a let me go into my prayer closet, King, and I'll be back in two days.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

I don't think so. You better give an answer quick. So you better throw up a prayer, Lord, thy will be done. Okay, Lord, thy kingdom come. Something quick, three seconds, eight seconds, and then get ready to give an answer.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yes. Okay. So then he says, uh, I love how he just asks, man. He gives his whole ask here. I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my father's tombs, that I may rebuild it. What? You're a cupbearer, you're sitting over here, you've been just giving me my drinks. How are you gonna rebuild it? That's my first question. Like, where did you get this from?

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Yeah, good question, yeah, good point. But when you hear that's that's that's great. But when your heart is broken in anguish over something that also matters to the Lord, somehow, mysteriously, you have this sense that it's okay, that you can release some faith that this is going to turn out well. Don't necessarily have all the facts, don't necessarily, but you know, you walk by faith. Give us this day our daily bread, not our weekly or monthly or our wall-building bread. Give us this day. Just let me let me go step by step and see how it turns out.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

I feel like there's a big lesson just right there, a jam-packed with he asked God, hey, you know, I prayed. And then all of a sudden he gives this massive ask. He could have said, Hey, king, you know, I'm worried about this. Can you send some people to go fix it?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

But yet, I mean, he didn't even think about his job. Like, who's gonna replace the cupbearer? I've been doing this for forever. He had an ass so big that it would take God to move in that situation for that king to be like, Yep, here I am. But it kind of reminds me, you know, the man at the pool of Bethesda in John 5, 6, when Jesus saw him laying there and knew that he'd already been in that condition a long time, he said to him, Do you want to be made well? He asked the question. And we have to be ready, like you said a few minutes ago, for the response. We have to be in that relationship with God so that we know when those doors are coming to be opened, we know what to say and do to get through that door.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

And Jesus is in that similar thing when I said a senior leader. I mean, this is the son of God. Not other people didn't really realize it. They just knew he was a miracle worker and a uh very uh great moral teacher or great rabbi, but they didn't really know yet that he was the son of God, that he was going to go to the cross and redeem man, that he was the messiah. So, but but notice what he says, what would you have me do? Okay, right. What what do you want to be made well? And it's and that's the uh same thing like a king asks, what what kind of what do you need? What is it you're looking for? And we gotta be ready. And I think get our hearts prepared that the Lord may move on our behalf if we are prayed up and we demonstrate our, as we said, anguish over as you had for uh young uh pregnant teens. Uh, then you know, name the the issue that you care about and then put it on the altar and say, Lord, I don't have the power and the resources to do anything, but I do have the heart for this. And I hope that that's good enough to get this conversation started.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Absolutely. Yeah, having the heart for it is is pivotal. And you know, something that I noticed here is that if he did not show that he was upset, if his face was not the way that it was, nobody would have ever known to even ask anything. And I think as Christians, as believers, that sometimes you know, we're trying to hide everything and push everything down and let everybody think we have this perfect life and we have it all together. And really, if we were to show those little pieces, those things that we're in anguish about, God has the body of Christ that can pick up and edify us and help us meet what God has put out there.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

There's so many puzzle pieces that requires humility, it requires vulnerability, it requires transparency. And as you just said, but when there are all these religious cultures uh around us, I remember years ago being in a church, wife, child, and they had some uh they had some booths set up of of uh ministries around town. And I walked up to Juan and we got a conversation going, and I said, Oh, do you know? And I mentioned somebody who was a mutual acquaintance, and he says, Yes, I do. And I told him what was on my heart about about uh relationships, you know, cross uh inter um racial reconciliation would be my thing. That's what the Lord is breaking my heart for, just as he did with you about the pregnant teens. And this man came, said, Can I I'd like to pray for you? I said, Yeah, okay. I figured he was gonna go home and get in this prayer closet and pray. What he did was he walked around the table, put his hand on my shoulder, and starts praying in the hallway, and there were people around. Brittany, to this day, I remember looking to the side, had my head down, I looked to the right, I looked to the left, I said, What are you doing? This don't you can't pray here. This is a church. Because I did this was not the culture. I I remember I felt uh I felt not anguished, but I felt uh uncomfortable, and so sometimes we're not allowed to show our vulnerability or our needs. But in this conversation, this man responded in an instant to invoke the God of heaven to support my vision, and uh and I've been in kind of relationship, deep relationship with him ever since. It's been powerful. So we got to watch that we aren't more yielded to culture, whether it's the social media culture or the Christian culture or the church culture that we're in. We got to be careful that we're not submitted more to that than we are to the God of heaven.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Wow. Eric, when you just said that, that absolutely struck me because I'm thinking here about Nehemiah and how he prayed. And it four months passed in between the prayer in this moment, meaning that he had four months to walk in there with his face all types of ways and feel all types of sorrow and show the king. But God did not move until he was willing to show what was wrong.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Well, you're right. Uh there's a there's a uh case to be made that the Art of Xerxes was not at that palace during that time, while Nehemiah, that he was up in a like a summer palace uh while while this was going on. So Nehemiah was still still there going through his heavy prayer and his heavy anguish in preparation. I believe, and I believe that there's a case to be made that the Lord had the king up in another palace, uh to you know, weather-wise, to get out of the out of the region that he was in. This was in the today what we call Iran, about a thousand miles away from Jerusalem. And so uh that's why I believe that Nehemiah had this tonic to uh to express this deep prayer and get into this. Yeah, but uh yeah, uh that that he got through that. It was about four months between the one when he had the visit and when he saw the king.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

That is interesting. Okay, to know that. Learn something new every day. Thanks for the info. So he has this. Conversation with the king, uh, that he prays in the middle of, and all of a sudden the king says yes. But not only does the king say yes, the king says all the yeses in all the ways. Uh, talk about God opening the door. What does the king do here?

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Well, he he what Nehemiah asked for was specifically letters to the keeper of the king's forest, and you know, give me leave to go take care of this. The king actually gave him above and beyond what he asked for, because the king sent a military escort to protect him. That was a show of power. Okay. This guy is not coming on his own, he's coming with the under the authority of the king. So he is he is submitted to the king, and the king has blessed this activity. And here are some mounted soldiers to prove it. Okay. And so, and he needed that, by the way, because when he got down to Jerusalem, there were three local governors who were exploiting the region and exploiting the poor, which another thing that broke Nehemiah's heart, and he dealt with it. But uh, and they were attacking to Nehemiah. Well, you know, he'll build this wall, it'll just fall down. Uh, and so they ended up and they they uh they really tried to trap him. Uh, it was one thing after another, we'll get into that another time, but uh my gosh, uh I get into this in the book that I'm writing about the prayer of Nehemiah. So this is some, it's a fascinating story of great and political intrigue as well as spiritual importance. Um again, why is this story so important? Because 450 years later, Jesus comes into this town of Jerusalem, which is a thriving metropolis at that point. Okay, enough for Rome to be wanting to conquer it and be in charge. Of course, that was a hated superpower, but nevertheless, it was you know, it was a real town that Jesus could come into. So anyway, that's that's a story taking us down the future. And my question is just as kind of an errant question, is if Nehemiah wasn't sent to rebuild this town, who was going to? Okay, because eventually the walls of Jerusalem not only needed to be rebuilt, but the civic infrastructure needed to be rebuilt. You know, we already had Zerubbabel who rebuilt the temple. Ezra came in to be the priest at the temple, so the spiritual life was doing pretty good, but the town needed an operational person, kind of a chief administrative officer. And I know if it was me and I was living in Jerusalem, I would have started a nonprofit, wall builders of Jerusalem.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

We would have handed out uh the flyers at the temple meeting and saying, you know, is anybody willing to volunteer? You know, anybody want to give a little few shekels to the cause? You know, I would have done it a man's way. But the Lord says, now I got I got a better idea. If I can break this guy's heart, send up these brethren, tell him a story, I'm gonna watch his heart because if he has authentic anguish over this, then I'm gonna hear from heaven and I'm gonna heal their land, and I'm gonna appoint this guy to go do it. Fascinating. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

I know it is absolutely fascinating. And I know you said we're not gonna dive into kind of the the weeds there with how his story goes, but I just want to mention kind of quickly, because I think this is so important. When God lays something on your heart and you go to you, you get the door, right? You get the open door and you walk through the door, and then all of a sudden there is opposition. That doesn't necessarily mean that you stop. Because he could have got there, had those three people come against him and been like, oh, well, clearly this is not what I'm supposed to be doing. Yes, my heart is here. Yes, he moved this, but I mean, these people are saying this. So since they're saying this, you know, a lot of the times we listen to other people instead of listening to God. And in this moment, you see him push past the the the common sense, I guess, of what the people would be around there of going, who is this guy? He's coming through. Okay, so what? He's got the king's seal. You don't know what you're doing, you're just a cupbearer. But that's how God moves, is he moves in those situations. And sometimes we got to push past the opposition even after the open door. That's right.

unknown 26:38

Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Sometimes our assignment has the provision that's kind of attached to it before we even know about it. Sometimes we don't even know what our assignment is until God moves in our heart and gives us the anguish that we need.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Well, when we see I'll call it supernatural supply, it's not logical that the king would write a letter to the keeper of the forest to give Nehemiah all the lumber and supplies that he needed.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

And and to and to let him go and accomplish this. It's just it just doesn't seem logical. Like you said, Nehemiah is in chain in uh engineering and and rebuilding walls and and in uh team building to be able to get all these neighbors. These neighbors, uh again, I'm getting ahead a little bit, but it's exciting, and they were they were rebuilding, would be like they were building two or three hundred feet of wall just outside their house. And then you go to the next neighbor and they build the next two or three hundred feet, and you do that all around the city until you've got about one mile, one and a half miles uh of uh of wall to circle the city. And by the way, why is that important? You say, but you know, come on, they got a temple. Why do they need a wall? Because back then you were you had no dignity if you if you just had broken down walls and you you look like it's a shambles. It's almost like going past somebody's house and the the landscaping isn't kept up, and the kids' toys are just littering the lawn and out in the street.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

So you know clearly there's no HOA there.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Uh yeah, but that's good. That's good. That's good. It was in heaven. The HOA was in heaven.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

That's right, that's right. Oh, that's funny.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

But look at these conclusions, these findings we've already had about, you know, is there anything that one is in anguish about? Okay, and then all anyway, all from there.

SPEAKER_02 28:39

Well, okay, I love that you said that. So a couple things through this episode, though. One, is there anything that you're in anguish about? Are you experiencing something? Have you had something touch your heart that you're like, I legitimately have no idea what to do about this? I don't feel like I have any power to do anything about this, but this just bothers me. Let that thing be known to God. Let just say, hey, God, I recognize this. Like, can you move? Can you move on my behalf? But the next part of it is when you get in that instance, I, you know, I talked about it a few minutes ago with Nehemiah stopping to pray. How does someone build that reflex within themselves to where in the moment when someone's talking to them, they can stop and pray? How do you remember that? What do you do?

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Well, one way to do it is to read the word, but then memorize and then meditate on it, which is to first person personalize, not just blessed is the man, but blessed am I. So that's putting myself in there, uh, so that you know the the Lord is my shepherd. That's that's my shepherd. He's my shepherd. Uh the the when you when you see these third-person uh statements in the Bible, go ahead and personalize. That's meditate. And then lastly, to engraft. So engraft is you know, from the field of biology to take the genes from one tree and graft it onto another one so that they they mix their genes. Maybe the one is more resistant to insects and uh certain uh challenges to that uh can affect the tree and hurt it and kill it. So this is a way to uh protect it. And so we're engrafting the word onto our soul, and as it does become a form of protection and and the wisdom and knowledge, and so it's it's very valuable. So that's the first thing. But then I would add the word faith, have faith that that the Lord is listening, that it's not just uh these are not just stories in the from ancient history. These are uh these are these are meaningful passages, and I think that's why we take the time to go slowly through them and and stop on sometimes three words, five words, one word, to see what it means. What does this verse mean? We've took we've quoted chronicles a couple times here in this uh in this podcast. So so there's there's those four things read, medit, um, memorize, meditate, and then graft. And then lastly, have the faith that when I do pray, short or long or on my knees for for months, is uh the Lord is hearing me.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

I'm really glad you said that because thinking that through, had Nehemiah not had this heart, had he not been praying, he would not have been in the right mindset to even have that sudden prayer real quick to see what God needed him to say. You can't sit out here and manufacture this closeness to God when a crisis comes if there's no closeness before the crisis. And I feel like a lot of times in life, we are just suddenly just going through life, okay, doing this, doing that, something bad happens. And we always hear, you know, that sudden prayer of like, God, I'll do anything if you'll do X, Y, Z for me. And I think that is so pivotal to remember here is that our walk with him every day gives us the ability and gives us the wherewithal to understand that we need to have that prayer in the moment. All this reading, memorizing, meditating, and engrafting produces that moment to where it's like when you see Jesus, you see me, right? Like I am acting so much like Jesus because I am in his word so much that that I am essentially acting like the Father.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Yeah, what you said a minute ago. God's not in the bargaining business. Lord, if you'll do this, I'll do that. You know, and you know, just reward me, clear this up, heal uh my mom, she's not doing well, or or provide me the money to make the car payment. This he's just not in the bargaining business. And you know, it's just I I just don't see it. So I'm I would caution people against feeling disappointed if they don't if their bar if their bargaining prayers don't work. It's just uh unfortunately not not a good identity. It's it's kind of like an orphan spirit, and it's uh the Lord wants to deal with sons, and that's a gender neutral term spiritually. And you know, it's John 1 12 says, as um, as many as received him, Jesus, he gave them power to become sons of God. And so we want to get that power to become sons of God, and so that's what are those? Those are mature believers, disciplined followers, uh somebody whose whose uh uh personality, their their soul, and their spirit begins conforming to that of the Lord Jesus. So that's another topic we can get into, but but uh yeah, this is this is really powerful.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

What else? So what we well, I guess what we see here with Nehemiah today is Nehemiah didn't have to to manufacture this opportunity, he didn't have to hustle his way in, he didn't have to figure out what to do. He really just stayed faithful in the season of four months here where he probably felt like nothing was happening. He probably just felt sad every day and was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do about this. This just hurts my heart. But when the moment came, man, he was ready and he prayed and he fasted and he asked specifically for what he wanted. And even though he had no idea that God would move through the king, right? I'm sure that he thought, like, okay, you know, God's gonna move through my friends or somebody back home or, you know, somebody that can actually do something, even though he didn't know that, he still did what he was supposed to do, and he was still ready and waiting for God to move. So that's not strategy. That is, well, I guess that is a strategy, is waiting and being ready uh and fasting and praying when he says that.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Well, yeah, but as you're talking, I'm realizing we really don't know. The Bible doesn't tell us what his belief was. So he he we don't know, but we've got to be careful not to impose on Nehemiah our own thought pattern. He may have had enough faith to say, Lord, uh, this king has plenty of resources, and I would like you to put in me the spirit of how to fix these walls and to get the resources from this king. And you know, his look of uh disappointment and fear on his face could be like in the last moment, as you said, this is a big ask. I sure hope it goes well, because if it doesn't, this could be dangerous. Okay, so that would be enough to put a disturbed look on his face, as well uh as the concern about Jerusalem itself. So uh yeah, now that you've mentioned it, I I realize we just don't know what was going on in his heart over that four-month period while he was preparing for this. So yeah, again, one of the cautions I would say for our good listeners is be careful not to superimpose upon God, upon in this case Nehemiah, what our own what we would have done, how we would believe. Because this is an opportunity to strengthen our all of our our strengthen the faith that's in our hearts uh as we uh as we seek solutions, like if you have a care for pregnant teens or for the poor or for racial reconciliation, what are you doing about it, you know, or for fatherhood. In my case, I I uh ended up uh uh building a nonprofit around the issue of fatherhood. We reached into prisons and jails and and uh found men who were f fathers of minor children and reconstructed a life for them because they had such brokenness and and the sense of of such a gap between who they were and how they could possibly be a father when they had no income source. There was a broken relationship with the with the mother, and they really had no model of fatherhood in their own life quite often. So we found we realized those gaps and we set up a system to fill those gaps and and it worked, drew the attention of some very big people, including the majority leader of the House of Representatives, uh was became aware of of our work. So among others. So um you never know where where your where your work will go if you give it a chance.

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Right. So today, with kind of closing out this episode and you know, part two of the power of anguish here, I guess we kind of have to ask ourselves one, is there something that we're in anguish over? Is there something that God has placed on our hearts that we have kind of pushed aside or we're not really paying attention to, or maybe it's really bothering us and we don't know what to do about it next? Man, the next steps are pray about it fast. Ask God what He wants you to do because when God is ready to open that door, are you gonna be ready to walk through it? That's what we need to settle in with today. Yes. So if this series hits you today, if this was something that you're like, yes, man, I I get it. Man, share it with someone, leave us a review, let us know what you want to hear about. And you know, we look forward to talking to you next time on our Biblical Passages podcast. Thank you. Until then, bye guys.