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Here are some tools to help you with the devotionals:

• A Guide to Journaling & Prayer
• A Guide to Self-Reflection
• A Chart to help articulate feelings

Commentary: Nehemiah 2

Bible Text: Nehemiah 2:11-20

¹¹ So I went to Jerusalem and was there three days. ¹² Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode. ¹³ I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire. ¹⁴ Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, but there was no room for the animal that was under me to pass. ¹⁵ Then I went up in the night by the valley and inspected the wall, and I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned. ¹⁶ And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, and I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work.

¹⁷ Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in, how Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer suffer derision.” ¹⁸ And I told them of the hand of my God that had been upon me for good, and also of the words that the king had spoken to me. And they said, “Let us rise up and build.” So they strengthened their hands for the good work. ¹⁹ But when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite servant and Geshem the Arab heard of it, they jeered at us and despised us and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?” ²⁰ Then I replied to them, “The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we his servants will arise and build, but you have no portion or right or claim in Jerusalem.”

Go Deeper：

Questions to help us go deeper

Nehemiah 2:11-16

• What can we learn about the kind of person Nehemiah was by the way he sets out at night to personally inspect the entire wall?

Nehemiah 2:17-20

• How does Nehemiah describe the situation that the people have been used to for about 140 years? What are some troubling realities I have become accustomed to that I need to redefine as unacceptable?
• Think about the beautiful response of the people, “Let us rise up and build,” and the words “So they strengthened their hands for the good work.” What does this passage show about the nature of “good work”? What good work has God given me to do, and what has been my response to it?

Prayer