The dust has finally settled. It has been decades now since Jerusalem fell to Babylon. Their unrepentant sins finally caught up with them – God sent in a foreign nation to exile swathes of people to a foreign land, destroy the Temple and smash down the walls of the city. Now, a new power is in charge and the people of God are returning slowly to their ruined homeland.

Keen readers of the Bible will know that this wasn’t unexpected. In fact, Moses had predicted just as much: exile for constant disobedience, and yet a glorious return promised.

As we open the book of Nehemiah we find the people of God having been in the land for a number of years… but that promised glorious return has yet to materialise. When Nehemiah hears about the city and the people still very much in ruin, he does the only thing he knows will work: he prays.

And what a prayer.

This Sunday we’ll hear this prayer. A prayer filled with big concerns, directed to a big God – and we’ll ask ourselves if we too pray like this, especially in times of deep spiritual trouble.

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