Immediate Access to the King of Kings

I find Nehemiah 2:4 to be one of the most encouraging verses to ever read as it tells me that no matter where I am and no matter what I am facing (or who I am facing) I have direct and immediate access to my Heavenly Father to ask for what I need in the very second I need it. We have immediate access to God!

Going a little deeper, we look at the situation Nehemiah was in when he shot a prayer to heaven.  Nehemiah, you may recall, was the cupbearer to the king, and as he was doing his job, the king noticed a sad countenance on Nehemiah.  The king (I love this) asked Nehemiah what was going on as his countenance revealed something going on in his heart.  Nehemiah tells him about his heartache over Jerusalem and the horrible condition the people and the place were facing.  

I like to encourage a reader to picture the scene they are reading in their Bible.  Can you see this exchange happening?  Put it into today’s setting. Can you see a waiter standing before the President with a downcast face and the President stops them as they are serving coffee to ask what is wrong?  Can you picture the waiter then saying, “Mr. President, my hometown is in ruins.”  Can you see the room get quiet as the waiter blurts out this negative problem?  Can you now see the President look directly into the waiter’s eyes and say, “What would you like me to do?”  

That is the situation.  The most powerful leader in the world has just heard Nehemiah blurt out his “negative” problem and the king wants to know what Nehemiah wants him to do.   

Now picture Nehemiah based on what we read in Nehemiah 2:4.  He does not speak immediately to the king.  He does not move from the king.  He, standing right there before the king, Prays to the King of kings.  He did not kneel.  As far as we know, he did not bow his head or close his eyes. He just prayed, praying to the God of heaven.

We don’t know what he asked but we can assume it was a prayer in which he asked for wisdom.  He probably asked God to give him the right words to say and the ability to say it the right way.  He may have asked God for boldness to ask for something that would seem outrageous and impossible.  While we don’t know what exactly he prayed, we do know that his testimony is before he made the biggest request he had ever made, he prayed.  He prayed standing before the king and he prayed before answering the king.  He prayed to the God of heaven and he prayed because he knew he had immediate access.

Immediately after praying to the king of Kings he “said to the king, If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.”

The rest of the story is very exciting as the king answered Nehemiah with an affirmative and even gave him more than he asked for (a great illustration of Ephesians 3:20).  The bottom line for us is we must know that we have immediate access to God to ask for the help we need when we need it.  

With Nehemiah 2:4 keep close to your memory Jeremiah 33:3 and Hebrews 4:16.
Jeremiah 33:3 says, “Call to Me, and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (those older will know that God’s phone number is JER 333)
Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Continue Strong knowing you have immediate access to your Heavenly Father.
And remember to DATE the Word