{"id":8480,"date":"2024-12-06T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-07T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=8480"},"modified":"2024-12-06T17:31:41","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T00:31:41","slug":"simple-observations-on-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=8480","title":{"rendered":"Simple Observations on Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Continuing with Nehemiah &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=8460\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a layman, remember<\/a>? &#8211; we pick up some important lessons on prayer. If you do the calendar math from chapter 1 to chapter 2, you see that his season of prayer, <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=8464\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">beginning with confession<\/a>, lasted about four months (from Kislev (Nehemiah 1.1) to Nisan (Nehemiah 2.1)). He takes wine in to the king (his job), and he&#8217;s sad, which got the king&#8217;s attention:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>It was the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king. At the hour for serving wine I brought it in and gave it to the king. I had never been hangdog in his presence before, so he asked me, \u201cWhy the long face? You\u2019re not sick are you? Or are you depressed?\u201d That made me all the more agitated. (Nehemiah 2.1, 2, MSG)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nehemiah tells the king he&#8217;s sad because Jerusalem is a mess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The king then asked me, \u201cSo what do you want?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Praying under my breath to the God-of-Heaven, I said, \u201cIf it please the king, and if the king thinks well of me, send me to Judah, to the city where my family is buried, so that I can rebuild it.\u201d (Nehemiah 2.4, 5, MSG)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And here we have some simple lessons on prayer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Prayer is for everyone, not just priests<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Prayer isn&#8217;t long and formal<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Prayer is for everywhere, even a king&#8217;s court<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He was praying for his life among other things! You weren&#8217;t allowed to be sad in the king&#8217;s presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He had planned so he knew how long he needed and what provisions he needed. Also, <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=8429\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">unlike Ezra<\/a>, he accepted cavalry escort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Then I said, \u201cIf it please the king, provide me with letters to the governors across the Euphrates that authorize my travel through to Judah; and also an order to Asaph, keeper of the king\u2019s forest, to supply me with timber for the beams of The Temple fortress, the wall of the city, and the house where I\u2019ll be living.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The generous hand of my God was with me in this and the king gave them to me. When I met the governors across The River (the Euphrates) I showed them the king\u2019s letters. The king even sent along a cavalry escort. (Nehemiah 2.7 &#8211; 9, MSG)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nehemiah travels to Jerusalem, surveys the situation firsthand and calls them to action:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Then I gave them my report: \u201cFace it: we\u2019re in a bad way here. Jerusalem is a wreck; its gates are burned up. Come\u2014let\u2019s build the wall of Jerusalem and not live with this disgrace any longer.\u201d I told them how God was supporting me and how the king was backing me up.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>They said, \u201cWe\u2019re with you. Let\u2019s get started.\u201d They rolled up their sleeves, ready for the good work. (Nehemiah 2.17, 18, MSG)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And we&#8217;re off! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. (1 Timothy 2.8, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>&#8230;praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. (Ephesians 6.18, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Continuing with Nehemiah &#8211; a layman, remember? &#8211; we pick up some important lessons on prayer. If you do the calendar math from chapter 1 to chapter 2, you see that his season of prayer, beginning with confession, lasted about four months (from Kislev (Nehemiah 1.1) to Nisan (Nehemiah 2.1)). He takes wine in to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=8480\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Simple Observations on Prayer<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-2cM","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8480"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8503,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8480\/revisions\/8503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}