“When I heard these words I sat down and wept, and mourned for days,…” (Nehemiah 1:4a NRSV)
If only a sailor could use any wind at all to get him where he needs to go. And if only a human being could use any feeling, any mood, any emotion to get them where they need to go. Enter Nehemiah.
We see as we read through his story the strong things that he feels. He feels things strongly, he feels things deeply, and yet we see that he lets those strong winds drive him… always towards God, and always towards God’s work. It’s remarkable.
So in the very beginning I shared with you when Nehemiah hears the bad news how he responds, how he feels. He says, “When I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days.” That’s not the whole sentence. I read to you before only a part of the sentence. Here’s the whole sentence: “When I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.”
His sadness did not merely drive him to tears, it drove him to prayer. And don’t dismiss that as a minor detail, a small thing. It makes all the difference in the world. It is the difference between an act of grief and an act of faith. It’s the difference between wallowing in my troubles and worshipping in my troubles.
-- Rev. David Kalas in a sermon entitled “Hero in the Rubble: Letting Yourself Be Moved”
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