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"When Events Betray, Reflect and Pray" Nehemiah 1

by The Rev. Clancy Nixon

Church of the Holy Spirit

October 8, 2006

Broadlands, Virginia

www.holyspiritanglican.org.

How do you deal with bad news? You can't avoid bad news. Bad news is a part

of life. Bad news happens. Some of us are experiencing losses right now. Ginger's Aunt

Mary died this week, and she is not yet back from the funeral in Atlanta. Some of us are

missing our good friends who have left our church, or who don't come as often any more,

and are just realizing that what they are experiencing is grief. I hear stories of adult

children who feel rejected because their parents set reasonable boundaries for them. How

about you? How do you deal with bad news? How do you grieve?

This is important. If you are married, this has huge implications for your

marriage. If you are single, you also experience many losses. If you are a teenager, this

stuff affects you more than you know. So what do you need to know? Here it is: "When

events betray, reflect and pray."

In The Grief Recovery Handbook, authors John James and Frank Cherry trace the

story of a boy named Johnny. When five-year old Johnny's dog dies, Johnny comes

unglued. He bursts out crying because his best companion is gone. So Johnny's mom

consoles him by promising, "Don't feel bad Johnny; we'll get you a new dog right

away." In that one sentence, his mom offers steps one and two in the world's program for

grief management: (1) bury your feelings, and (2) replace your losses. The theory goes,

once you have a new dog, you won't even feel the pain of the loss.

Later, when Johnny goes to college, he falls in love for the first time, and gets

engaged. However, Johnny makes some mistakes in his relationship, so the girl breaks

their engagement and his heart. Now dad comes to the rescue with, "Don't worry son,

there are other fish in the sea." Translation: "don't worry" means "bury the pain" and

"there are other fish" means "replace the loss." Johnny has steps one and two down cold.

Over time, Johnny tries to overcome his feelings with academic achievements,

athletics, extra-curricular activities, and a host of busyness to take his mind off his pain.

But it just won't go away. His father notices that Johnny has become a little moody and

distant so he asks, "What's the matter?" Johnny says he just can't get his mind off his

former fiancée and how much he misses her. Then dad gently introduces him to the third

step in society's program for grief management: He says, (3) "Johnny, give it time... time

will heal the pain."

Of course, time doesn't heal the pain, it just submerges it. Johnny mulls this over

and does a little relational math. He reasons, "Whenever I allow myself to get close to

someone, it exposes me to the possibility of deep pain. Therefore, to make sure I don't

have to experience this pain again, I'm going to keep an arm's length from any close

relationships that may expose me to this kind of pain." Johnny has learned the fourth and

final step in the world's plan: (4) wall up and never trust again. Don't get too close to

anyone lest you get burned.

So here are the world's steps of grief management:

Bury your feelings

Replace your losses

Wait for time to heal

Distrust vulnerability

Does that sound familiar? It's the program our society has been offering for years.

Do you know what God has to say about this program? It doesn't work! The

Bible gives us some good examples of healthy grieving, and one of them is Nehemiah. In

a nutshell, Nehemiah teaches us this wisdom: "When events betray, reflect and pray."

Let's say that together: "When events betray, reflect and pray." This week I'm beginning

a series teaching through the book of Nehemiah, that great wall-builder of Jerusalem,

which begins on page 472 of your blue pew Bibles. Nehemiah has much to teach us

about grieving, about prayer, about leadership, and about spiritual warfare. First, we need

some historical background to enter the world of Nehemiah, so let's rewind by 2500

years!

In 587 B.C., the Babylonians invaded Judah and destroyed the city of Jerusalem,

along with Solomon's temple, and resettled most of the people to far parts of the

Babylonian empire. The book of Ezra picks up the story 70 years after that invasion.

Cyrus, King of Persia, who had conquered Babylon, gave the Jews permission to return

to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Under the leadership of a man named Zerubbabel,

about 50,000 exiled Jews returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the Temple in 538 BC. But

the people succumbed to temptation and refused to turn away from the same sins for

which God had judged their ancestors. Temple worship became corrupt, and many of

God's people had intermarried with idolaters. In 458 BC, Ezra the priest led the second

return of exiles to Judah, and he had overseen a spiritual renewal of the people back to

Biblical practices. This was thirteen years before Nehemiah arrived in 445 B.C., when he

successfully rallied the people to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem, restoring safety and

dignity to God's people.

In Nehemiah chapter one, verse one, Nehemiah's brother Hanani arrives in the

citadel - or walled city - of Susa, the capital of Persia, after a journey from Judah. Now

Nehemiah has never yet set foot in Judah; he has lived his whole life in Persia, where he

has an excellent job as cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, a place of honor and high trust in

the King's Court. Nehemiah asks his brother, verse 2, how the Jewish remnant were

faring in the land of promise. Hanani tells Nehemiah this is verse 3: "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."

Remember the main point today: "When events betray, reflect and pray."

Nehemiah was so moved by this bad news that he sat down and wept. That is step 1 in

God's plan for grieving: don't bury your feelings; Feel your feelings. Feeling your

feelings is a part of reflecting. When he heard that his friend Lazarus had died, Jesus

wept. (John 11:35) When people bring bad news, sometimes they ask, "Are you sitting

down?" That is because when grief strikes, it is hard to stand up. When Jews grieve a

death, they sit Shiva, mourning and praying and telling stories together for days. God

wants us to feel our feelings. Nehemiah did. It's not that he was weak, or emotionally

unstable, but instead that he was burdened. In fact he was so burdened that it says in

verse 4 he mourned and fasted and prayed for some days. The King James Version says

it was many days. How long was it? It was as long as he needed. There is no set time for

grieving! You grieve until you are done grieving. Most Americans stuff their emotions

and get back to work so quickly that we do not grieve as much as we need to. Men, this is

especially true for us. When you receive bad news, pay attention to your sadness, and let

yourself grieve. Wives, don't think that your husbands need to cry in order to grieve. You

might need to, but they might not. Men's grief often comes out as anger. Husbands,

don't pooh-pooh your wives' need to grieve.

Remember: "When events betray, reflect and pray." Nehemiah shows us Step 2 in

God's plan for grieving: don't attempt to replace your losses right away; instead, Reflect

on your losses. It is four months between when Nehemiah first gets the news and when

he asks the King to let him go to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall. Waiting often seems like

a waste of time. The assumption is, since we aren't moving ahead, nothing's going on.

But that is not the case at all. Some important things are taking place while we wait.

Remember Moses? He had the right idea, but his timing and methods were terrible. His

vision was to free his people from Egyptian slavery. So what did he do? He went to work

and killed an Egyptian. So, what did God do? He sent Moses to the University of Midian

to study in a wilderness program for 40 years until he was ready for God's plan, and not

his own.

Remember: "When events betray, reflect and pray." Step 3 in God's plan for

grieving: don't expect time to heal; instead, pray to God to heal. Nehemiah's prayer in

verse 5 comes at the end of a long process of prayer and mourning and fasting. The

prayer in verse 5 is a summary prayer after he has processed his grief so that he now

knows how to think aright about his situation. He opens this prayer with praise to God,

and he reminds God and himself that Yahweh is one who keeps his covenant of love with

those who love and obey him. He says in verse 6 that he prays day and night this same

prayer on behalf of Israel!

Wow. Very few people pray this way. We don't think this way. We don't expect

at the outset of a problem that we might just have to settle in for a long haul of prayer.

We want quick answers to quick prayers. We pray microwave prayers when sometimes

pot roast prayers are needed. In verse 6 and 7, Nehemiah confesses his part in the sins of

his countrymen, and he confesses also on behalf of his countrymen. This is called

identificational repentance. Confession is healing, because forgiveness is healing, and

forgiveness comes after confession. God longs to heal you. Ask Him.

Step 4 in God's plan for grieving: don't distrust vulnerability; instead, trust God

with your future. That is what you do when you pray in faith. Faith is trusting God

with your future. In verse 11, Nehemiah prayed for success in a specific venture asking

the King for a favor. He's trusting God, since his request for the King to overturn his

previous decision not to allow the wall to be built (which you can read about in the book

of Ezra) could have brought about Nehemiah's death. "When events betray, reflect and

pray."

So let's review: Here is God's plan for dealing with bad news:

1. Feel your feelings

2. Reflect on your losses

3. Pray to God to heal

4. Trust God with your future

So how can you make this real in your life? I'd like to ask you to take some time

to reflect and pray on your recent losses this week. Take just one hour this week to

reflect on a recent loss and pray about it. Ask yourself: have I been following the world's

plan for grieving, or God's plan? Have I spent enough time to allow myself to feel my

feelings, and to think it through? Then pray about it long enough to feel a sense of

completion.

Can you imagine what it would be like if we all actually did this regularly? If we

gave ourselves and others permission and time and space to feel sad when we lose

something or someone important to us? What if we actually prayed about what troubles

us, and asked God to comfort us in our sadness, and guide us in how to respond, instead

of bottling it up or spewing it out? Can you imagine what our marriages might look like if

we didn't attempt to bury our feelings? If we husbands just let our wives cry when they

needed to and did not try to fix that? If wives simply trusted God with their futures, not in

the security of their husbands? What if teenagers and single adults acted as if they really

believed that God has a plan to prosper them, to give them a hope and a future, and they

staked their lives on it? If we lived like that, we would go a long way toward becoming a

healthy and whole church. The broken down walls in our lives would be rebuilt. That is

my prayer for us today.

Remember: "When events betray, reflect and pray." Let's do that now.