and

Sometimes there is a lot of wisdom packed into a few words. That’s what Nehemiah 4:9 looks like to me. That verse relates the response of Nehemiah and all the Jews rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem, when they heard that Sanballat was going to attack them to stop there work. This is what it says:

“But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.”

The first thing I noticed was the “and.” In addition to praying, they did what they could. Or, depending on how you tend to handle things, you might say in addition to doing what they could, they prayed. I think this is a good model of how discipleship works. I’ve heard it said this way: Pray like it’s all up to God, but work like it’s all up to you.

It’s easy, I think, to do one or the other. Most typically, we probably try to handle things ourselves and then pray when that doesn’t seem to be working.

Which brings us to the second thing I see in this verse. Nehemiah prayed first. To him it was the best answer, Plan A, the thing most likely to work. Then, trusting that God would handle it, he posted guards in case God chose to handle it that way.

Pray first, but act also – that seems to be the lesson of this verse. Actually, I think James and John Calvin would say pray first, then act but pray while you act, and then pray afterward in thanksgiving. But I think as we progress through Nehemiah we’ll find that he did exactly that.