The Way of the Request

“Then the king said to me, ‘What are you requesting?’” – Nehemiah 2:4

When Nehemiah hears the news that an attempt to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem had failed (Ezra 4:23), he responds with weeping, fasting and prayer. As a cupbearer, he was the chief financial officer, bore the signet ring, and likely served as the wine taster. He had ready access to the king, yet it was nearly four months before he made his ask. When the king finally noticed his sadness, Nehemiah felt “very much afraid” (2:2), perhaps because the king was known to punish those who were sorrowful in his presence (Esther 4:2). Nevertheless, after hearing the reason for Nehemiah’s sadness, the king puts this question to him: what are you asking for?

When was the last time you asked for something? Not used a question as a veiled command (“can you take out the trash?”) or request for information (“why did you do that?”), but as a genuine request? It’s hard to ask. It’s easier to take and demand, or deny and ignore. True asking requires I give attention to what I truly need or truly want. It requires that I share that vulnerably. It puts the power of granting entirely in the other’s hands. It leaves me only able to receive. To ask is to approach in humility. Dallas Willard writes, “We try to ‘manage’ or control those closest to us by blaming and condemning them and by forcing upon them our ‘wonderful solutions’ for their problems. [God] then shows us a truly effective and gracious way of caring for and helping the people we live… It is the way of the request, of asking.”

Nehemiah makes his asks of the king. But the king was not the first one he asked. Months before this (4:11) and even during it (2:4), he had been asking God. Jesus says, “ask, and it will be given to you” (Matthew 5:7). Asking exposes the nature of our relationship with someone, and Jesus says there is something about our relationship with God the Father that we can only experience when we ask. What are you asking for today?

Seeking Solitude

“Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.” – Matthew 14:22-23

“If you don’t come apart for a while, you will come apart after a while.” – Dallas Willard

This word “made” here is Greek anagkazo, “to constrain, to compel,” from a root word that means “necessity.” For Jesus at that moment, solitude was a necessity. And some compulsion was required to gain it: tensions and feelings were running high. Herod had just beheaded John the Baptist and was likely on the lookout for Jesus. A remarkably large crowd was present, likely because it was around the time of Passover. Jesus had just finished feeding them, the only miracle recorded in all four gospels, and they wanted to make him king, a prospect his disciples probably relished. Who knows what Jesus was feeling at that moment—the temptation of earthly glory? Tides of public and political momentum? Weariness? Unprocessed grief? All of the above? 

This was a time when it would have made no natural or logistical sense to seek solitude. Yet Jesus insists on it immediately, dismissing the crowds despite the fervor of their adulation, dismissing the disciples despite the fact that it left him geographically stranded. He spent an extended portion of the night praying alone on a mountain.

When was the last time you were alone, really alone? When was the last time you went into the wilderness? David Brooks writes of the wilderness: “life is stripped of distractions. It is quiet. The topography demands discipline, simplicity, and fierce attention.” 

There were certainly times (like nine verses ago) when Jesus gave up solitude to serve others. But he also goes to great lengths to seek it. How attune am I to promptings for retreat? How intentionally do I respond to that inner invitation or impulse? 

The Spiritual Discipline Of Secrecy

“And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” – Matthew 6:4, 6, 18

“Thou are not the holier though thou be praised nor the more vile though thou be blamed or dispraised. What thou art, that thou art; that God knoweth thee to be and thou canst be said to be no greater… For a man not to wish to be comforted by any creature is a token of great purity and inward trust. He that seeketh no outward witness for himself, it appeareth openly that he hath committed himself all wholly to God.” – Thomas a Kempis

“We are saved by grace, of course, and by it alone… But grace does not mean that sufficient strength and insight will be automatically ‘infused’ into our being in the moment of need. Abundant evidence for this claim is available precisely in the experience of any Christian. We only have to look at the facts. A baseball player who expects to excel in the game without adequate exercise of his body is no more ridiculous than the Christian who hopes to be able to act in the manner of Christ when put to the test without the appropriate exercise in godly living.” – Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines

As an enneagram type three, I tend to be motivated by acknowledgement from others and making a good impression. I tend to like others knowing about my accomplishments. Even if I know I shouldn’t, it creeps up on me almost subconsciously. “Being a Three and living in America is like being an alcoholic living above a saloon,” writes Cron and Stabile in The Road Back To You—and I would say that is particularly true of living in the Bay Area. But all of us have this tendency, to act better when we’re being observed by others. How many of us are kinder to strangers than we are at times to our own spouse?

Jesus says in Matthew 6:1, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” He isn’t saying, “don’t let anyone ever see you living rightly”—a city set on a hill cannot be hidden, after all—but he is saying, be careful if being seen by other people becomes too much of a reason you live rightly. It’s not that we oughtn’t care about rewards, but precisely because we ought to care about the right rewards, the rewards that matter. 

Sometimes when God brings a particular sinful tendency to our attention, it’s helpful to practice a spiritual discipline that counters it, and one that can be helpful in this area is the discipline of secrecy. Quite simply, it’s when we abstain from causing our good deeds or qualities to be known. We do so with the intention of helping ourselves “lose or tame the hunger for fame, justification, or just the mere attention of others… we learn to love to be unknown and even to accept misunderstanding without the loss of our peace, joy, or purpose” (The Spirit of the Disciplines, p. 172). There are many ways to practice this: ask God to reveal areas where we tend to need acknowledgement or accolade; find places to serve that don’t require others knowing we’ve done it; be mindful to honor confidentiality; take a break from social media; discuss accomplishments of others rather than our own. I like how Willard puts it: “We allow him [God] to decide when our deeds will be known and when our light will be noticed.” As Kempis writes, it can bring a new kind of wholeness, intimacy, and purity in our relationship with God. It can reveal aspects of how we see our own worth. It can increase our trust in God to do the work in others or reveal things in his own time. It can bring us to experiences when we are actually more excited by the accomplishments of others than our own.

“And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” In the end, the longing of the performing heart is to be seen, truly seen, and this is part of the promise. Not only the reward, but the seeing of the Father. Sometimes, when Elijah gets upset, I hold him and say, “I see you, Elijah. I see you, I see you.” Your Father sees you. What is secret from others is in plain view before Him. That’s the secret of the whole thing.