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People ask me to pray about things all the time. And I have written a lot about prayer. But I don’t very often listen to someone praying and then say “How did you do that?” It feels strange.

The last time Nehemiah and I were talking, I realized that he was the perfect person to ask. Prayer often shows up in the book of Nehemiah, from the middle of the first chapter to the very last sentence.

I looked at him. “So, your brother comes, you pray, ask God for favor, and the next day at work, the King asks you what’s wrong. That’s amazing!”

He coughed discretely. “You did say that you read my book, didn’t you? Do you have a copy here somewhere?” He looked around.

I turned the screen toward him, browser open to an online Bible. He ignored it. It was pretty clear that he wanted me to read.

“Oh, right. It says that you wept and mourned for days. I bet you were pretty hungry after that week. How do you pray that long?”

He coughed again. The polite habits of a wine steward last for millennia I guess. “Do you have a calendar?” he asked. I pointed to the one on the wall.

“That’s yours. Where’s mine?”

I looked at him.

“I don’t want to point out the obvious,” he said, “but the book is pretty clear about my brother coming in Chislev and the King talking to me in Nisan. You probably should look at a calendar with months rather than days, and one with my months rather than yours.”

I looked it up. Four months. That’s how long from Chislev to Nisan. The period of prayer Nehemiah describes is like starting a period of fasting and mourning and praying in late October and staying with it until the end of February.

I asked him how it was possible to pray the same thing for four months. And how he could not eat for all that time.

“I know, right? I’m working in the palace, great meals. Even after Daniel’s healthy eating experiment, there was plenty of food we could eat.^[1] But I knew that fasting was something done in times of serious approach to God. And I was serious.

“In my grief, I started looking at the prophets, the people who had written about the exile. And I found words from Isaiah that gave me hope, words from a hundred years before me. Isaiah wrote, ‘Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations. You will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.’^[2]

“That was exactly what I wanted to do. But what would it take? I read the context of the prophecy, what comes immediately before the promise.

“Isaiah talked about the kind of fasting that God wanted.^[3] It’s fasting that shares meals with people who need the food rather than just not eating. It’s a life of justice, of being a leader who cares for people, of looking for underdogs and helping them. It’s a life of spending yourself on behalf of the hungry.

“It changed everything I thought about how to pray and how to follow God and how to lead. I spent four months letting that work into my life.

• Every day I said, ‘God you are the faithful one, the committed one. Please listen to me.’
• Every day I said, ‘We have sinned. Generations of us, yes, but my family too. And I have sinned, God.’ That reminder was important to me as I was learning about sharing and justice and compassion. I learned to look at my own behavior.
• Every day I reminded God about the stories of repentance from Moses and from Isaiah. And when I did that, I was reminding myself.^[4]
• And every day I wanted to be ready for serving the King.”

I held up my hand. “When you say “King”, do you mean your king, Artexerxes, or your King, God?”

“Yes.”

I thought about Nehemiah’s words. Four months, every day, morning and evening. Four months learning to give up deserved meals to share with others. Four months of learning to discern misappropriated power. Four months of developing integrity of heart and mind. Four months of going to work while still going to God. Four months of asking God to give him favor in the King’s eyes.

“Are you saying,” I asked, “That every morning and every evening, your prayer was simply acknowledging sin, asking God to listen to you, and asking for a good reputation with your boss?”

He nodded. “It’s simple to say. It’s harder to do than you would think.”

Finally, I looked at him and said, “You spent more time fasting and praying than you did rebuilding the walls. So which part was the great work?”

“Precisely,” he replied. With a nod, he walked out.

I looked at Nehemiah’s prayer.^[5] Morning and evening, I’ve been looking at it. And at my heart. And thinking that four months may not be long enough.