Tag: Nehemiah

Posted on

Prayer and Hope in Suffering

 

And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. — Acts 12.4
“I believe that God both can and will bring good out of evil,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from a Nazi prison in 1943. It was in the first months of his incarceration, and he believed he would be free by Christmas that year.

Adjusting to life in his cell, which offered little natural light, was extraordinarily difficult. Bonhoeffer, like the disciples in Acts, drew deeply from his faith:
I believe God will give us all the power we need to resist in all time of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely upon ourselves and not on him alone. A faith as strong as this should allay all our fears for the future.
Though Bonhoeffer would not taste freedom in this world again (he would later be transferred to a concentration camp and hanged), his words of lament, faith, and hope stretch through all his correspondence. Never more-so than his prayer from Christmas, 1943:
O God, early in the morning do I cry unto you. Help me to pray, and to think only of you.

In me there is darkness, but there is light in you. I am lonely, but you do not leave me. I am feeble in heart, but you do not leave me. I am restless, but there is peace with you. In me there is bitterness, but there is patience with you; your ways are beyond understanding, you know the way for me.

O Holy Spirit, grant me the faith that will protect me from despair: deliver me from the lusts of the flesh. Pour into my heart such love for thee and for men, that all hatred and bitterness may be blotted out. Grant me the hope that will deliver me from fear and timidity.

Chiefly do I remember all my loved ones, my fellow-prisoners, and all who in this house perform their hard service.

Lord have mercy. Restore me to liberty and enable me so to live now, that I may answer before you and before the world. Lord, whatever this day may bring, your Name be praised. Amen.
The accounts of those who suffered before us can foster resilience in our suffering today. May our prayers be enlivened by the glory of God. May our Spirits rest in the peace of Christ. May our suffering never eclipse our view of the glory and sufficiency of God.

Today’s Reading
Nehemiah 2 (Listen – 3:42)
Acts 12 (Listen – 3:49)

Posted on

Courage to Suffer

 

“As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” — Nehemiah (1.4)
We are too often left to suffer alone. Our culture is immensely individualistic and communal mourning stopped shortly after the first immigrants arrived in the new land. Our pride further complicates things—suffering is, by nature, inglorious—sharing our pain risks loss of relationship, status, or worse.

Suffering alone deepens isolation. We become disconnected from our community and distanced in our relationship with God—we struggle to feel the love of others, even if we have an intellectual grasp of its presence. In her TED Talk on vulnerability researcher Brene Brown says this:
There was only one variable that separated the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging and the people who really struggle for it. And that was, the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they’re worthy of love and belonging. That’s it. They believe they’re worthy.
Before you dismiss it as self-help tripe, the reason Brown discovered this was true has a deep meaning for people of faith. In looking at those who had a strong sense of love and belonging, Brown says:
What they had in common was a sense of courage. And I want to separate courage and bravery for you for a minute. Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language—it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning “heart”—and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

These folks had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, because, as it turns out, we can’t practice compassion with other people if we can’t treat ourselves kindly.
Nehemiah weeping is reminiscent of David’s Psalms of Lament—there was a courage to confront the veracity of the pain. More than that, as we see in the Psalms, there was a progression: a cry out to God, followed by a request for his intervention, then a praise for his love.

We cannot forget that when Jesus was confronted with the pain of this world he wept. God incarnate, weeping at loss. When we hurt, God weeps with us. But he does not stop there. For it is only through his power we, like Lazarus, can be called out of the depths of our pain.

Today’s Reading
Nehemiah 1 (Listen – 2:06)
Acts 11 (Listen – 3:52)