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Welcome back to Nehemiah, week one, day three. Yesterday, you remember, we began
to talk about how to begin to react to a problem in such a way that you see it
with eyes of faith. Many of us know we should do that.

Nehemiah teaches us how to do that. Three practical things you can do that cause
you to react to a problem in a different way in your life, a process that needs
to happen in my life and in your life. Nehemiah, when he learned to the problem,
he mourned and he fasted and he prayed.

We're going to begin looking at those three things more deeply right now. First
thing you do as part of the process is you mourn. You express your hurt to God.

Nehemiah's immediate reaction was tears. He cried for his city. He cried for
God's city.

A little history behind this. In 587 BC, Judah, the northern part of Israel, was
removed from the land of Israel and deported to Babylon with only a few of the
Israelites left in the land. They suffered there in captivity in Babylon.

In about 538, Persia defeats Babylon. Babylon itself gets defeated and Cyrus,
the king of Persia, sees everything differently. He begins to start to send some
of the people back into Israel.

In his first year as king, he sends some people back to rebuild the temple. And
seven or eight years later, Nehemiah, who's a captive from Israel, who's risen
to become the cupbearer for King Cyrus, pretty important job in the kingdom, he
learns that the walls of Jerusalem are still in ruins. And here's what happens
in verse 2.

"Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men and I
questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile and also
about Jerusalem. They said to me, 'Those who survived the exile are back in the
province and are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken
down and its gates have been burned with fire.

When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and I
fasted and I prayed before the God of heaven. '" So his first reaction is to sit
down and to weep.

But he also had a continued reaction. His continued reaction, "For some days I
mourned. " So it wasn't just an immediate emotion of sadness.

For days he mourned what had happened. It only takes a moment to cry. It takes
time to mourn.

There's some circumstances in your life that have hurt and you may have cried
for a moment, but have you taken the time to mourn that circumstance, that loss
in your life? The Hebrew word for mourning here is Abel. And to mourn, as you
read through the Old Testament, even in the New Testament, to mourn was to show
your emotion, to express it usually both audibly and visibly.

You can see audible expressions of mourning in Jeremiah 22, 18, Jeremiah 48, 36.
You can see visible expressions of mourning in Genesis 37, 34, Micah 1, 8, again
and again in the Old Testament. And mourning was something that lasted.

You see examples in the Old Testament of mourning lasting seven days in Genesis
50, 10, 30 days in Numbers 20, 29, even 70 days in Genesis 53 to 4. It takes
some time to mourn. You can't do it in an instant.

So the question for my soul, for your soul here, is there a hurt or a loss in
your life that you've never taken the time to mourn? Or the circumstance that
you're facing right now, the trouble, the problem, the rebuilding that needs to
happen right now. Is there a hurt that you're facing that you've never taken the
time to mourn?

Now as I walk through this, I want to recognize that there are the huge hurts of
life and the day-by-day hurts of life. And both of them we need to take time to
mourn. You may be getting older and you don't have the physical energy that you
used to.

Have you taken time to mourn that? God, I wish I still had that. Or you're just
sort of irritated about it all the time.

Here's why this is so important. If you don't take the time to mourn, you can't
see the opportunity in the problem because you will never see past the hurt. Let
me say that again.

It's so important. If you don't take the time to mourn, you cannot see past the
problem to see the opportunity because you'll never see past the hurt. So take
the time to mourn.

What is it that you need to take the time to mourn? I know we think, "But
that'll make me sad. " God understands this inner sadness.

Sadness is not a bad thing. There are some things in life that need to be
mourned. I know our secular culture says sadness is always bad somehow.

That is just simply not the truth. He mourned. And then he did a second thing.

He fasted. To mourn is to express your hurt to God. To fast is to focus your
attention on God.

Now this might be unfamiliar to you, this idea of fasting. You know it means not
eating. That's about all you know about it.

What does the Bible say about fasting? Just a very quick few verses in the
Bible. It tells us that fasting is accompanied by prayer.

It's always accompanied by prayer in the scriptures. Luke 2. 37, you can see
that.

Psalms 35. 13. The attitude behind fasting is to be humility.

Ezra 8. 21 tells us that. Jesus tells us that in the Sermon on the Mount.

Obviously, you don't fast to impress people. You don't fast to get attention on
you. You fast to get your attention on God.

Some people in Jesus' day were fasting to get other people's attention on them.
Jesus said you've got it all wrong. No, you fast to get your attention on God.

As you look through the scripture, there are different reasons that people
fasted. Sometimes they fasted to express grief. Second Samuel 1.

11 talks about that. Sometimes to express repentance to God over sin. Jonah 3.

4 and 5. Daniel 9. 3 to 6.

Sometimes to just earnestly ask God's help. You see that in 2 Chronicles 22 to
4. Sometimes it was just as an expression of worship.

Luke 2. 36 and 37. Acts 13.

1 to 2. Just a time of worshiping and fellowshiping with God. The point is,
fasting was not just a change in diet.

It was a change in activity that prompted a change in heart. You see, the value
of fasting is not in what you aren't doing. I'm not eating, I'm not eating, I'm
not eating.

It's in what you are doing. The real purpose of fasting is not self-denial. In
fact, the New Testament tells us that self-denial has no benefit spiritually.

If anything, it's got negatives in your life. So the purpose of fasting is not
self-denial. It's a change in activity that gives you a new motivation,
different timing in your life, so that you have more time to focus on God.

As you're facing a problem, if you don't focus your intention on God, this is
part of the process. If you don't focus your attention on God, you will find
yourself either narrowing your picture or blurring the picture. You'll either
narrow the picture.

As you go through the problem, you narrow your focus too closely. The problem
becomes your life. All you see is the problem.

All you see is you. All you see is the struggle. You don't see the greatness of
God.

Or you blur the picture. You broaden your focus and you try to do anything and
everything in life to get away from the problem, to escape the problem, and
everything in your life becomes blurred. It's going so fast.

I see a lot of busy people trying to escape problems. What you need is to focus
your attention on God. So what you might try this week with a struggle, a
problem, an issue that you're facing, try a one meal fast.

Just start there. Now, if you have dietary issues, you might need to check with
a doctor about this, even for that much. But for most of us, we're able to do a
one meal fast.

Maybe it's lunch. And you just skip a lunch, and you take that 35 minutes, you
take that hour, and you focus your attention on God. You focus your attention on
God with that hurt that you've been facing.

That's the reason for a fast. Nehemiah teaches us how. How to move from a place
of just seeing the problem to a place of seeing God in the midst of the problem.

We need the strength to do that, obviously. So let's ask for it again right now.
Father, help us to do these things that Nehemiah teaches us to do.

Not just to hear about them, but to do them. God, to take the time to mourn. We
don't like to feel sad.

But God, in that sadness, you meet us. You tell us the realities of life, and
you also give us hope. You remind us that the circumstance that we're facing,
you're greater than that circumstance.

The sadness that we have, there will be joy in the morning, and there is eternal
joy to come. But God, it begins with an honest expression of mourning. Help us
to mourn.

And God, help us to fast. Help us to focus our attention on you. Put in our
minds right now, a practical time we can do that this week, so that with the
problem we're facing, we can begin to see you, your will, your growth, your
strength.

God, we're looking for more than a solution to the problem. We're looking for
you to be at work in our hearts and lives in the midst of the problem. And
that's what we ask for.

In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to look together at the power of
prayer when you're facing a problem.