Mourn, Fast, Pray – Choice 1

10 choices within the pages of Nehemiah, I call the Blueprint for Becoming New. It is a rebuilding of the broken, an erection of walls of grace and a tearing down of walls of shame. A step-by-step guide of how God restores our soul and our place in His Kingdom. We are his people. The next 10 blog posts I will walk through each step with you.

Choice 1 is Mourn, Fast, Pray

When was the last time you actually mourned?

Most of the time we associate mourning with death. My mother passed from this earth 7 years ago in August. If I am honest, I still mourn her loss. I miss sharing life with her, sometimes desperately so.

Mourning is also grief, sorrow. I have much grief over some of my choices in life and suffer great sorrow when I realize the impact it has had on myself and others. I also grieve over other people I love and their choices. Even further I grieve over people I have lost that are still living either due to irreconcilable differences, or for the horrible atrocities they committed in the name of love to my person.

Nehemiah is mourning the displacement of an entire nation of people. His people. Grieving the choice they made to be scattered. So sorrowful over this he is willing to risk his own life for the opportunity to help his people rebuild their land and facilitate their return to God.

Do you mourn over things in your life that need to change? Do you grieve over choices you made? I know I do.

Nehemiah prays a prayer before going on this journey. It is a beautiful prayer of redemption and asking God to go ahead of him before he embarks on this journey. I have rewritten that prayer as a prayer for me to do the same in my own life. I think this will give you a good idea how you can reword it for yourself too. Do that now, after reading this.

“The walls of Susanne are broken down. Her gates are destroyed by her own choices, and the injury of others to her person. How she lives and fills her mind, and even how she serves Jesus. I, Susanne, weep and I mourn for days. I need to fast and pray. Oh Lord God of heaven the great and awesome God, who keeps confident and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. Let your ears be attentive and your eyes be open to hear this prayer your servant is praying before you day and night, confessing my sins, that I have sinned against you. I have acted against you; I have not kept your commandments or statutes. Remember the word you commanded Moses, if you are unfaithful you will scatter, but, if you return to me and keep my commandments, you will bring me back to the chosen place. You have redeemed me to your great power and strong hand. Let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, in whom you delight to fear your name. Please give success to me today and grant me mercy in your sight to rebuild. If it pleases you Lord send out protection for me. Give me the necessary tools to rebuild my temple, my walls, my house. I ask for your hand Oh my God to be upon me. Your servant Susanne”

Scriptures on Mourning for you to look up:

Most of the time in scripture fasting was done to implore God for His movement in the lives of His people. The term fasting means “abstain from all or some kinds of food or drink.” Today people also fast from things like television, social media and other things that might be holding them back mentally, spiritually or physically. The new craze in dieting is intermittent fasting, to improve numerous different health risk factors like blood pressure, sugar levels, cholesterol.

Fasting is truly a way to humble yourself. As a Christian, it is to humble yourself before God. In the life of Jesus, he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights after his baptism, when he was led by the Holy Spirit to do so to conquer all temptation and prove to satan and to us as God’s people that we can overcome the temptations of the flesh and declare mastery over our human nature to live every moment directed by the Holy Spirit.

There are so many accounts in scripture of people fasting besides Nehemiah and Jesus. Moses Exodus 34:28; Elijah I Kings 19:8; Daniel Daniel 10:2-3; Early Church Acts 13:2-3, 14:23; Paul 2 Corinthians 11;27; Jesus Disciples Mark 9:29 and many more.

I personally have fasted before going out on mission trips, before big decisions in my life, along with the entire church when we were praying for God to move in a big way. I have reaped the benefits of the fast and I have also ignored the need for fasting. I believe Nehemiah’s blueprint to fast and then pray is important. Fasting shows a humbling of spirit, a denouncement of flesh, our human nature and the temptations that beset us, to put us in the proper posture for God to move. It gives God the power. It instills self-discipline, nurtures humility, brings spiritual renewal and intensifies our prayers.

Scripture on Fasting:

Matthew 6:16-18

Ezra 8:23

Isaiah 58:6

Psalm 69:10

Praying. I pray little prayers in the car, when I hear someone needs prayer, when I am in great need of a miracle, when I am desperately worried or afraid, and when I am seriously in need of sales at work. But the daily act of praying without ceasing, I believe is a posture in which we should live. I believe we should set aside time every day for praying in deep reverence to God. Jesus often went away to pray.

I have set out on that journey so many times it is embarrassing. I know God hears the pleas of my heart, the little prayers I lift to him daily while on the run. But, in seeking to become new, I truly want to find myself a prayer time to devote myself to full emersion, without distraction, to go to war against the temptations of the enemy, against the principalities of the air, the forces in the spiritual realm that attack our flesh and lead us in the wrong direction.

This world has truly become a modern-day Sodom and Gamora. I witness its subtle and not so subtle decline into destruction, and I see so many signs that we are falling apart. I will not go into detail in this place, however, the desire to become a prayer warrior, to build me a war room of prayer has become visible for my own problems in life, as well as the world outside my home.

What is prayer? It is a conversation with God. it is that simple really. Although we tend to make it harder, the veil was torn so we can sit with Him in person and share our souls ache, desires, shames, needs.

Nehemiah new that prayer would protect him because he asked God for protection and direction. He knew he desired to rebuild, but he also knew he would need God to make it happen, he couldn’t do it as a measly cupbearer. God softened the heart of the king. WOW, he softened the heart of the king to see the anguish in Nehemiah’s eyes and spirit and he felt compelled to grant him his wish. That doesn’t happen folks. God was in control of that entire situation, and He went before Nehemiah.

What a blueprint for us!! Let’s humble ourselves and pray before we make decisions, when we need guidance, daily to show our humility and reverence for God and his work in our life.

Scripture on prayer

Mark 11:24

Philippians 4:6

James 5:16

I Thessalonians 5:17

Matthew 26:41

Romans 12:12

1 Chronicles 7:14

As we close on choice 1, consider what you are going to do with the groanings of your soul. What do you want to see happen? Where do you want to be going in your life? What do you desire? Mourn over your inability to do that alone, fast on it, pray about it and let’s move into step 2, Asking God for what we want. The reason, we need to mourn, fast and pray first is because we need humbling. When we truly sit at the feet of Jesus in our flesh and let him flesh-out our souls we see things differently, we hear God and what we want could actually change.

Mourn, Fast, Pray

Take the time to look up all these scriptures, go through the mourning process, fast for your soul’s redemption and pray for God’s vision for your future.

See you for Choice 2,

Susanne