Rebuild Your Life - Feel The Pain
- Paul Downie
- May 21
- 13 min read
Nehemiah 1:4 NIV
[4] When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
In 1992, the rock band REM released a sad song that changed, and even saved, many lives.
The simple little song was called ‘Everybody Hurts’. It was designed to assure people who felt like ending their lives that they were not alone – that other people also felt pain like them, and that if they just held on, they would make it.
On the other hand, there were many songs and choruses when I was growing up which stated that Christians should be happy and joyful and never be sad, as if holiness was represented by a rictus grin or a cheesy smile – the over-egged smile of a clown while all around everything is in ruins.
That is utter nonsense. There is no truth in it.
Christians are human beings. Human beings who live in a fallen world. As Solomon put it so simply:
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4 NIV
[1] There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
[4] a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance
There times and seasons in life when, yes, it is right to be joyful, even exuberant.
But there are also seasons in life when it is right and appropriate to be sad and experience mourning and pain.
Both of these have their meaning and purpose in our life. We should not seek to rush through either, but let them do their important work to turn us into the people God wants us to be.
Nehemiah was in exile, far from his native country. The Jews had been in Babylon for a hundred and thirty years, so all he had ever known was exile. He was evidently born into a family of standing, because the Babylonians had a practice of taking men of standing into their service (see Daniel 1:3-6) and their service seems to have continued when the Persians took over.
Yet, interestingly, little is known of his family, other than his father’s name, which is ‘Hakaliah’, meaning ‘wait confidently on the Lord’.
Nehemiah is literally the son of a confident wait for salvation.
Yet that does not mean that the waiting process is easy. It is painful. And that pain is both normal and necessary in the will of God.
In this simple verse, quickly and often skipped, we see the heart of the man – the heart that drove him to do what he did. I want us to notice three things about this heart that help us when we are burdened with our own sin.
The first of these us that it was A Broken Heart.
A Broken Heart
Nehemiah 1:4 NIV
[4] When I heard these things, I sat down and wept.
Nehemiah was more than sad – he was devastated. The Hebrew words here don’t indicate a man who was mildly upset, they talk of a man who was distressed and was wailing and lamenting the state of his fellow Jews.
Which is quite something because, as I have already noted several times, he did not have to do this. Because, you see, not all Jews had this deep emotional connection to their homeland. They might have mourned the state of their capital city and their Temple for a while, but not all of them were poor. Not all of them were suffering. Many, like Nehemiah, had good positions in society and were prospering, and so gave no thought of returning to their devastated homeland. As Ezra noted:
Ezra 8:15-17 NIV
[15] I assembled them at the canal that flows toward Ahava, and we camped there three days. When I checked among the people and the priests, I found no Levites there. [16] So I summoned Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah and Meshullam, who were leaders, and Joiarib and Elnathan, who were men of learning, [17] and I ordered them to go to Iddo, the leader in Kasiphia. I told them what to say to Iddo and his fellow Levites, the temple servants in Kasiphia, so that they might bring attendants to us for the house of our God.
Consider this: the Levites were set apart to provide spiritual leadership for the people of God. Their principle role was to lead worship in the Temple. Yet even they were reluctant to leave Babylon and had to be sent for!
But Nehemiah, a man of undetermined tribal affiliation, weeps and mourns over the fate of Jerusalem.
He is clearly made of different stuff, better stuff.
In fact, he reminds me of another person who mourned over the state of Jerusalem, only He mourned for it before it was destroyed, not after:
Luke 19:41-44 NIV
[41] As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it [42] and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. [43] The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. [44] They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
Who is this who weeps?
Jesus Christ.
Nehemiah is keeping good company.
Mourning over other people’s spiritual state, and your own, is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. Even Jesus taught His disciples:
Matthew 5:4 NIV
[4] Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
King David lamented his own spiritual state after he sinned gravely with Bathsheba and murdered her husband:
Psalms 51:16-17 NIV
[16] You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. [17] My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
And again, in another Psalm:
Psalms 32:3-5 NIV
[3] When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. [4] For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. [5] Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.” And you forgave the guilt of my sin.
We live in a universe of cause and effect, of consequences. A normal consequence of our sins and moral failings is sorrow. As Paul explained:
2 Corinthians 7:10 NIV
[10] Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
So let’s be done with the idea that Christians should always be ‘happy-clappy’ all the time.
There us a place for pain. There is a place for sorrow. There is a place for sadness. There is a place for tears.
When confronted with the pain and utter devastation caused by death in a fallen world, even Jesus wept (John 11:35).
When confronted by the pain and devastation caused by sin in our fallen world, why shouldn’t we?
So we saw that Nehemiah had a broken heart, and that it was the right and proper and appropriate and timely response to a very difficult situation. But his heart was not just broken. He also had A Seeking Heart.
A Seeking Heart
Nehemiah 1:4 NIV
[4] When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted...
Earlier we saw this verse:
2 Corinthians 7:10 NIV
[10] Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
Do you know what the difference is between godly and ungodly sorrow?
The difference is what it does.
Godly sorrow drives you towards God.
Ungodly sorrow drives you away from God.
Imagine for a minute that all of the pain and emotion and hurt and frustration you feel about your situation is bound up into a big burden of negative energy.
Like lightning in a storm, that energy has to go somewhere. It had to discharge. If it doesn’t, it will cause immense harm.
Many people – including some who call themselves Christians – try to pretend that negative energy doesn’t exist. They douse it in alcohol to try to take the edge off. Or they take drugs – prescribed or otherwise – to blunt it. They try to burn it off at the gym or through retail therapy. They run from it to try to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Some even take it out on the people around them.
But none of that works. The problem still exists. The negative energy still exists.
The pain still exists.
Here, right in front of us, we have the solution. And it should be so very obvious, really:
Take it to God.
Psalms 55:22 NIV
[22] Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.
Psalms 62:5-8 NIV
[5] Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. [6] Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. [7] My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. [8] Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.
Psalms 142:1-2 NIV
[1] I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. [2] I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble.
This is what we have to do.
Even Jesus commended it:
Matthew 11:28-30 NIV
[28] “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Peter too:
1 Peter 5:7 NIV
[7] Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Nehemiah was prepared to feel the pain of his situation – and that is the right thing to do.
But he also knew what to do with that pain. Instead of turning it into anger or depression or anxiety, he turned it towards God. He wept. He mourned. He even fasted as a sign of his sincerity and earnestness.
But he sought God.
And that is what made the difference.
He directed his pain towards the one person who could handle it and do something about it.
This is something we have to learn from. When things really don’t go our way, it’s just the easiest thing to take it out on someone. But that never works. In most situations, it makes things even worse.
The correct place to go with all that pain, all that suffering, all that frustration, is God.
Maybe you were raised to believe that we shouldn’t do something like that. Maybe you believe that God is so holy and we are so common that such ‘base’ emotions should have no place in our spirituality.
But that is nonsense.
Have you even read the Bible? Have you read the Psalms? Have you read Lamentations? Have you seen how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane?
There is no false dignity there!
I don’t doubt for a second that there will be some obstacles to cross when it comes to approaching God in this way. However, He made us who we are. We have a need to deal with often difficult and saddening and maddening situations.
We ought to bring them to Him.
That is precisely what Nehemiah does. Because as well as a broken heart and a seeking heart, we see A Praying Heart.
A Praying Heart
Nehemiah 1:4 NIV
[4] When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
This, and the verses following it, need to be understood carefully and in context.
We need to understand firstly, What is prayer?
The Hebrew word for ‘to pray’ is the word used to entreat or make a request of a ruler. This is how Nehemiah would have understood it. He was about to take his request to God.
Nowadays, the definition of prayer has been widened to include prayers of praise or thanksgiving, but in Old Testament times, that was its main function. It was to ask God for help.
We also need to understand How to pray?
We will see how Nehemiah prayed in my next post. However, it is worth noting that, when the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, He taught then the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:1-4). But He also added two further sides to this: that they should pray persistently (Luke 11:5-13) and also practically (Matthew 6:14-15) by putting into practice His teaching about forgiveness.
Prayer is not as simple as we might think.
However, it can also be a deeply emotional experience. There are times when words fail us: when we are simply overcome with grief and shame and disgrace and just can’t seem to get the words out.
The Bible has the solution:
Romans 8:26-27 NIV
[26] In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. [27] And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.
So the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us before the Throne of God, does so according to the Will of God, and He does so using wordless groans.
That should eliminate the struggle over words – sometimes we don’t need any.
The Bible also answers the question about Where to pray?
The location might surprise you:
Matthew 6:5-6 NIV
[5] “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. [6] But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
There is nothing Nehemiah’s prayer that indicates that it was prayed in any form of public forum. Nothing that points to a synagogue or place of worship. Certainly nothing that points to it being prayed in the Temple as, even if the Temple had been completed around seventy-two years previously, Nehemiah was hundreds of miles away.
No, this is a recording of a private prayer.
Nehemiah fasted, sought God and prayed in private, behind closed doors.
It is critically important that we understand this. Public and group prayers are very useful, and a source of great encouragement. But when our life is in a bit of a mess and things are going very wrong, when we have transgressed and made huge errors, when we are seeking recovery from addictions and dependencies, we must seek God in the secret place. We must pray to Him away from the crowds, alone with Him, and set aside any hope of preening, grandstanding or putting on a show.
We must be real and honest with Him. We must be open and transparent and vulnerable in ways that we would never be if others were around.
That is the only way to find our way back to God.
That is the only way our life can be rebuilt.
Conclusion
Nehemiah 1:4 NIV
[4] When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.
While on a visit to the countries of Georgia and Armenia, my family and I visited the tenth century monastery at Sanahin. We entered a room that seemed to be a little dark and foreboding, with huge pillars and archways that had been blackened with time and frequent battles for survival.
However, this room was not the main church hall. That room, which still bore the scars of damage wreaked by the Soviets to its ancient frescoes, was in the next room. The one we were standing in was a chamber that existed to allow people to repent of their sins before worship, so they could worship God with a clear conscience.
In other words, the tradition of the Armenian Apostolic Church is the face the pain and the consequences of what we have done, repent of it and then worship.
I am not an Armenian Apostolic believer. As many of you will know if you have followed my work for a while, I am Scottish Baptist. I don’t agree with everything they believe. But I have learned that there is some value in listening to other Christian groups in humility and seeking to learn from them.
What I saw in this ancient church building really struck me quite profoundly.
We have built a whole culture around escaping pain. Our hedonistic pleasures are built around helping us to forget our problems and enjoy ourselves for a while.
But this is meaningless. It always has been. It always will be.
If we really want to break away from the damage our sin has caused, first and foremost we must face it.
And that will not be easy. Of course not. The greater the damage we have caused, the more pain it will cause us.
But we need to stop seeing that pain as a bad thing. Pain has its purpose. Pain reminds us that something isn’t good for us. Pain guides us away from danger. It can be debilitating, of course it can. Anyone with chronic pain will tell you that. But it can also be our friend and our guide. As CS Lewis once wrote: ‘We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world....No doubt pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. it removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul.’
For Nehemiah to be used by God to rebuild Jerusalem, it was necessary for him to face squarely the terrible pain of its destruction. The mess the city was still in, around a hundred and thirty years years after it had been destroyed during the exile, impacted him deeply.
But in these few words we see the measure of the man. We see that he had a broken heart, a seeking heart and a praying heart.
We see that he felt sorrow – deep sorrow – at the suffering of his fellow Jews and its root cause in their sin. However, this sorrow was not worldly sorrow. It was not misguided, misdirected or internalised. Such sorrow kills.
No, it was Godly sorrow, because it led him to the Throne of God.
I am not a fan of boxing. To me, it’s just violence with rules. But often we see boxers that are knocked to the canvas and almost counted out. They sometimes struggle to their feet, often rearing themselves onto their knees, before standing gingerly on their feet.
We can feel like them: bruised, battered, barely conscious, just scrapping to survive. And – we have to be honest about this – we might even be the cause of our problem.
But, like a groggy boxer, the fightback begins on our knees. It begins in prayer, in deep, emotional, transparent honesty before God.
It isn’t easy. It’s hard. We might weep. We might bawl. We might howl. We might get angry, frustrated, furious.
But that is where it begins.
The question is: do we have the stomach for the fight?
Are we ready to feel the deep pain of our situation?
Are we willing to bring it to God?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, here I am. I am hiding nothing from You. My situation is bad. I know I caused at least part of it. I want it to change. I want to change. Help me, I pray. Amen.
Questions
How did Nehemiah feel about the news he received? Why did he feel this way?
What is the difference between Godly and ungodly sorrow?
Are you willing to be this open and honest with God?
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