Prayers for the Building of the Wall

Nehemiah 1:4-11; 2:4-8; 4:1-9; 6:9; 9:5,31

By Wallis Metts, Ph.D.*

At Spring Arbor University, we now have a strategic plan and several new initiatives. And, of course, we still have the work we normally do, as well as new challenges—enrollment goals to reach, accreditation challenges, students to retain, a capital campaign to complete. It makes me think of Nehemiah, who had to run a city and rebuild its wall at the same time.

Nehemiah is not a priest, not a prophet, not even one of the returned exiles living in the ruins. He is not a cabinet member or a consultant. He is a cupbearer in a foreign palace, hundreds of miles away, when his brother brings him news: the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, its gates burned. And here is where the book begins—not with a plan, but with a prayer.

I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying” (Nehemiah 1:4).

In some ways, our own strategic vision is also driven by grief. The walls are crumbling around us: social degeneration, economic reversals, political division. And we are called to build a wall and a temple, both to defend the faith and enlarge the kingdom.

But before Nehemiah drafts a single proposal, he spends days in grief and intercession. If we are honest, that is not usually how we start. We start with a plan and pencil prayer in at the opening or closing, if there is time. Nehemiah reverses the order. The burden comes first, and it comes while he is on his knees.

Months pass. Then comes the moment everything turns on. The king notices Nehemiah’s sadness and asks what he wants. This is the opening Nehemiah has been praying toward for months—and here is what he does with it:

So I prayed to the God of heaven. Then I answered the king (2:4–5).

Not a pause to withdraw and compose himself. A prayer inside the conversation, in the space of a breath, before he says a word. And then, having prayed, he answers with remarkable specificity—a timeline, letters of safe passage, a request for timber. Prayer did not replace preparation. It preceded it and shaped it. He had clearly already thought through what he needed. He just would not ask for it without first asking God.

I think that is exactly what is asked of us in a season of planning and implementation. We do not receive a plan and then execute it in our own strength. We face a hundred small versions of Nehemiah’s moment—a budget conversation, a hard personnel call, a decision made in someone’s doorway with no time to prepare. The prayer that matters most in a season of implementation is rarely the long one. It is the one prayed in the three seconds before we answer. We have to embed prayer in our conversation and in our thinking.

But it turns out that starting well is not the hard part of building a wall. The hard part is the middle. By chapter 4, the people are partway through, and two things happen at once: outside opposition—Sanballat and Tobiah mocking and plotting—and something worse, discouragement from inside their own ranks. “The strength of those who bear the burdens is failing. . . . We are not able to rebuild the wall” (4:10). That is not an enemy talking. That is Nehemiah’s own workers, exhausted, saying the plan is beyond them.

Here is Nehemiah’s response: “We prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection” (4:9). Prayer and a practical response, in the same verse, neither one instead of the other. He does not pray and wait passively. He does not organize a guard and skip the prayer. Every strategic plan looks achievable on the day it is approved. The test comes months in, when the initial energy is gone, the work is unfinished, and somebody is saying it cannot be done. That is the moment this text says to pray—not instead of leading, but as the way we lead.

Later still, under personal threat, Nehemiah prays one line: “Now, O God, strengthen my hands” (6:9). Five words. Not a strategy. A request for strength to do the next thing.

As we turn to our part in the plans before us, Nehemiah shows us prayer at the start—before the ask is even made. Prayer in the middle—when the wall is half-built and the workers say they cannot finish it. And prayer near the end—five words, asking simply for strength to keep going.

The wall was rebuilt in fifty-two days, and the text is honest about it not being a triumph of Nehemiah’s competence. “They perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God” (6:16). That is where we want to land. This is what we want to say at the end of this year, and at the end of the next: This has been accomplished with the help of our God.

Whatever a plan asks of us, let prayer be our habit—pray before we answer, pray when it gets hard, and pray simply for strength when we are tired and the wall still is not finished.

And there is one more prayer in this story: the prayer at the end. It is actually 37 verses, a long, unhurried prayer of remembrance and praise. This is our goal—not just a recap of what we did, but a prayer like this after all the short and necessary prayers of the task itself. The wall is finished. The building is done, the gates are hung, and the whole assembly gathers. Here is part of what they pray:

Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise (9:5).

And further on:

Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God (9:31).

That is my hope whenever a strategic plan is finally finished—a prayer like that one. Whatever gets built, may we know clearly enough that God dealt faithfully with us, and may we give him the praise and worship he is due.

Lord, we are not able to rebuild the wall. Strengthen our hands. And glorify yourself, for you are a gracious and merciful God.

Wallis Metts, Ph.D. is Professor of Communication and English at Spring Arbor University