[And Nehemiah prayed] Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their taunts upon their own heads, and give them for a prey in a land of their captivity. ~Nehemiah 4:4 (AMP)
Have you been taunted lately? How about despised? None of us are going to get through this life without adversity and sometimes we find ourselves in a place where adversity is coming at us from all sides. It doesn’t matter if it’s at home, in our workplace or even at church our options are limited until we seek God to step in and make the changes necessary to bring relief from the pressure. In Nehemiah 4:4, we find three words that are vitally important to remember when we are trying to stand strong when adversity comes our way: “And Nehemiah prayed”. How did he respond to all the attacks that came against him—the laughing, the anger, the rage, the judgment, the criticism, being told his desired goal was impossible? He prayed! What would happen if you prayed every single time that you felt afraid or intimidated? What if you prayed every time you were offended, or every time someone hurt your feelings? What if you prayed immediately every time some kind of judgment or criticism came against you? Would your life be different? Would you be able to withstand the storms better? Of course, you would. Prayer ignites our faith. The more we pray, the more we start looking for God to act. If we never take time to believe God for the minuscule, we will never be able to believe Him for what we perceive as impossible. Prayer shifts our focus from what we see to what we need to see because we are putting it into hands bigger than our own.
We can learn an important lesson from Nehemiah’s prayer: “Hear, O our God, for we are despised. Turn their taunts upon their own heads, and give them for a prey in a land of their captivity.” (AMP) Notice that Nehemiah did not go after his enemies himself; he asked God to deal with them. His attitude was, “I’m doing your will Lord. You told me to build this wall and I am busy building it. I need you to take care of my enemies”. Many times, God tells us to do something or gives us an assignment and as we begin doing it the enemy comes against us, and when we turn to fight him, we turn away from what God has called us to do. We get distracted and suddenly the enemy has all our attention. We spend our time fighting him instead of praying and asking God to intervene as we continue in fulfilling the will of God in our lives. Have you gotten distracted lately? We all do. But we don't have to stay there! We have access to the very throne of God. We need to start praying a lot more! We need to keep our focus so firmly on what we know the Lord expects us to do that we don’t let distractions like what people think and what they say cause us to move. We are on a mission, and we aren’t going to finish strong if we don’t keep our mind set. Trust God to take care of anything and everything that comes your way today as you keep your focus on Him and what He wants you to do.
Each one of you will put to flight a thousand of the enemy, for the Lord your God fights for you, just as He has promised. ~Joshua 23:10 (NLT)
What will you ask God to deal with today?
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