What Do You Want?

Nehemiah 2:1 And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth 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. 2 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, 3 and said to the king, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire?" 4 Then the king said to me, "What do you request?" So I prayed to the God of heaven.

Now here’s an opportunity if there ever was one! But is the answer obvious?

King Artaxerxes, the most powerful king in the world presently, is entertaining the request of one of his trusted servants, his loyal cupbearer Nehemiah. For Nehemiah, I suppose the possibilities are potentially endless. After all, he has heard the homeland of his people is in shambles – and the situation seems entirely hopeless back in Jerusalem of Judah. Things are so bad there, in fact, Nehemiah has been sickened by the plight of his brethren. It is that very sickness displayed on Nehemiah’s face which has prompted the king’s query: basically, “What is wrong with you?”

This is an opportunity for sadness and despair to go one of two places. An attempt can be made to do something about the problem which is causing the sadness, or an attempt can be made to treat the symptom of the sadness itself.

In this example, we see clearly how the Lord desires to move. According to the Word, Nehemiah has been praying to the Lord for four months about the problems back in Jerusalem, (Nehemiah’s emotional and spiritual homeland, even though he has never stepped foot there.) After 90 years of return from exile, the city still lies mostly in ruin, and the walls have not been touched. The temple has been rebuilt, as well as some of the houses, but there is absolutely no protection from any outside force which may desire to destroy the Jewish people.

I suppose after 90 years the most likely response from an observer might be that there is nothing that can be done about this problem. It appears the people have absolutely no desire to do what needs to be done to protect themselves. Who could possibly motivate them? The amount of work to be done to bring about restoration must appear completely impossible.

So, the choices: Is it time to take a vacation to try to forget all about this despair? Is it time to buy some stuff to help distract himself from his sadness about the problem? If Nehemiah had looked within himself, perhaps these may have been the answers. (Treat the symptom of sadness.) But Nehemiah, in his wisdom, did something we should not take for granted: He asked God. And God called Nehemiah to do what he could about the root cause of the problem – not the symptom of his sadness.
- Pastor Bill