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?

Confession

“O my God, I am ashamed and blush to life my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads... what shall we say after this?... shall we break your commandments again?... Behold, we are before you in our guilt.” – Ezra 9:6, 10, 14-15

Ruth Haley Barton writes, “Our culture promotes a profound sense of denial about the presence of sin in our lives and the ways our sins and negative patterns wound others.” Perhaps that is why I am struck by Ezra’s genuine grief and open confession. When was the last time you told someone you felt ashamed about something? The tone of this part of the book seems far more personal than anything we have read thus far. 

There are three general kinds of confession: personal (between God and us), interpersonal (with a trusted friend or the person we have offended), and corporate (as a community or congregation). We see all three kinds here in Ezra 9-10: the personal confession of all who had taken foreign wives (10:14), interpersonal confession of Shecaniah to Ezra (10:2), and confession as an assembled congregation (9:10, 10:1, 10:9). 

For some reason, interpersonal confession seems hardest to do. It’s much easier to confess in private or in the anonymity of a large group, but much harder to look someone in the eye and admit your wrong. For one thing, most of us have seen few examples of this done well: it is rare to grow up with parents who model confession to each other or their kids, for others to personally apologize for their wrongs, for friends to be vulnerably and deeply committed to accountability. If anything, sheltering in place has given me plenty of chances to model confession to my kids: “I’m sorry I hurt you with my tone of voice.” “I’m sorry I turned my frustration about your brother onto you.” “I want you to know I said sorry to your Daddy after we fought.”

For another thing, interpersonal confession can reveal whether or not we are really confessing at all. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution... Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.” Whenever I feel the urge to brush off confessing my sin to someone, I at least try to examine that impulse. Am I really sorry, or am I just trying to make myself feel better and move on? 

“Confession,” writes Barton, “is good for the soul… because it opens us to the experience of being forgiven and the freedom that comes on the other side.” Confession leads not to shame but to release, because we have this promise: “If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Ups and Downs

“And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping.” – Ezra 3:11-13

When people ask me how I am doing these days, the phrase I keep going back to is “up and down.” Some days I parent so well I wish I could tell someone about it; other days I struggle constantly with losing it at the kids. Some days it seems like the kids are growing closer; others like they won’t stop fighting. Some days I’m able to reflect on what the isolation and monotony are revealing; other days I give in to the temptation to escape in whatever way I can. Some days I appreciate those I live with; other days everything they do seems to annoy me. Some days I’m able to maintain perspective; other days the anger and sadness are overwhelming.

I struggle with berating myself for all this lability. But here in Ezra we see an experience full of ups and downs, starts and stops. After fifty years of exile in Babylon, the Israelites return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, only to have to pause for fifteen years before being allowed to continue. And even at this first laying down of the foundation, there is both joyful shouting and loud weeping. Irrepressible happiness, and deep sorrow, mingled together until one sound could not be distinguished from the other. To some, this was victory, return and restoration; to others, a reminder of what was lost and of the difficult days since.

The sorrow is as rightful as the joy. There are ups and downs, at times coexisting such that they cannot be separated into tidy categories or logical flowcharts. The spiritual life was never meant to be as linear as I think we’d all like it to be. Our struggles with temptation and sin, our sharing of the gospel, our wrestling with idols, our experience of trials come with both shouts of joy and wails of sorrow, with both triumph and regret. 

The first stone that is laid in a foundation is the cornerstone. It did two things: it was load-bearing, providing stability, and it was line-determining, providing direction. Lloyd writes that the cornerstone is the “stone at the angle of the structure by which the architect fixes a standard for the bearings of the walls and cross-walls throughout.” Christ Jesus is our cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). He bears the load of all our experiences, and he is the immovable compass through all our ups and downs. Before him, we can shout our shouts and sob our sobs; he can bear it all, and he can show us the way through.