And now God, strengthen my hands.
– Nehemiah 6:9
What a great six-word prayer. “And now God, strengthen my hands.” I think about all the massive things that are happening in the book of Nehemiah. These walls being rebuilt. The people of God, in a sense, being rebuilt. All of these great things happening. And there comes this point, we’ve seen Nehemiah in different ways in this book, just look up to heaven and he prays. And it’s just a simple prayer. He’s like, “God, my hands hurt. I’m working. I’m doing all this. I need help with my hands.”
This short prayer encourages us that God invites us to bring all our petitions to Him regardless of how big or small they may seem.
Nehemiah 6:9 Reminds Us That Every Prayer Matters
And it’s just a good reminder to me as I read this verse that there are no small prayers before God. There’s no insignificant prayers before God. Yes! We wanna pray and plead for God to work in mighty ways in the world around us, for God to do great things beyond what we could ask or imagine even. But it’s also all together right for us to pray, “God, my hands hurt.” Just think, “God, I’ve got a headache. I pray you to help my head to feel better.”
If we’re not careful, we can start a thing, “Well, that just seems kind of too small of a prayer. I don’t know if I should pray that before God.” But absolutely we should pray that before God. You’re going through your day and your feet start to hurt. “God please strengthen my feet.” You’re getting tired, “God I’m tired.” You start to get a cold, your throat’s sore, “God please help my throat to feel better.” God invites us to pray like this all the time. Just think about small seemingly insignificant things in our lives and the lives of others around us.
Nehemiah 6:9 Call Us to Pray For Ourselves and Others
And don’t think for a second that God hasn’t called us to pray about those things, so it’s so we pray. I just think about all the potential things that might come to our minds as we’re praying right now. And God we pray for all kinds of small things in our lives. I think about my life this morning. I came to you. I’m coming to you even now, really tired, just exhausted. And I praise you, that I can come to you and say, “God, I need your strength.” And you hear me. And you answer my prayer that you will give me strength.
So I pray for that for other people who are tired right now. Pray that people who are feeling sick and in different ways, in big ways. I pray for those who are struggling with cancer right now. I pray for your grace and your strength, among those who have cancer. And then God, I pray the same for those who’ve got colds. Everywhere in between, from colds to cancer, and then for big things. Yes God, we wanna see your glory made known in our lives and our families and our churches.
Remember to Pray for Unreached People Groups
We want to see your glory made known among the nations, for more nations to come to know you, for unreached peoples to be reached with The Gospel. We pray for those big things today. At the same time, we pray the salvation of our neighbor. We pray for the salvation of this person who lives right next to us, or maybe this person in our home, or this friend that we’re gonna spend some time with this week. God, we pray for their salvation. We just pray in the small and the big. And we praise you for hearing us, in the small and the big, and answering us according to your wise and all powerful provision. We pray, strengthen our hands. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
