Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 63 · March 4
The Night Ride
“Then I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me; as also the king’s words that he had spoken unto me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.”
It is the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes. Nehemiah serves the king his wine, and today, for the first time, his face shows what he feels.
The king notices at once: "Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart." Nehemiah's own note on that moment is honest: "Then I was very sore afraid." He explains that the city of his fathers lies in ruins. The king asks, "For what dost thou make request?" and before answering, Nehemiah prays. No words are given, only "So I prayed to the God of heaven," because there was no time for more.
When he reaches Jerusalem, the first thing he does is wait. "So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days." Then one night he takes a few men and the one animal he rides, and goes out to look at the walls in the dark. "Neither told I any man what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem." He sees the walls, "which were broken down, and the gates thereof were consumed with fire." He is measuring the problem before anyone hears him describe it.
When he finally speaks, he gives the people two kinds of evidence. "Then I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me; as also the king's words that he had spoken unto me." He sets something no one can see, God's hand, beside something anyone could check, the king's word, and he trusts both, because God had moved the king.
"And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work." In the very next verse, Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem laugh them to scorn.
That sends you back to the night ride. Nehemiah had already seen every broken stone they laughed about. Nothing said in daylight was news to a man who had looked at it all in the dark with God, so his answer was ready: "The God of heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build." Whatever ruin you are facing, you can look at it honestly with God first, and then build with Him.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 63 is Unmovable Kindness (Isaiah 54:10).