Response to a Broken Heart: Prayer & Fasting

1-12-22 Response to a Broken Heart: Prayer & Fasting Glenda Simpkins Hoffman

Can you think of a time when you received news that broke your heart? I remember the day at age 20 that I received news of my brother’s death. I remember the exact location, the look on the person’s face who came to me from some distance to inform me in person. I remember my first thoughts and what happened next. It was a moment when everything changed, and I was brokenhearted.  

The same is true of 9-11. I was at a Youth for Christ event when the director stopped the speaker to share the news that planes had just flown into the twin towers. The event ended immediately, and my colleague and I drove home in silence listening to the news on the radio. I arrived home to see the live coverage of the second tower collapsing. Many prayer services were held the following week to mourn and pray. Our entire nation was brokenhearted because of the evil that had brought loss of life and grief to so many.   

I also remember well the death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer a year and a half ago. So many people were broken-hearted by yet another unjust death of a black person. His death not only led to mourning and prayer but taking to the streets in Washington, DC, and other cities across the country.  

A number of gatherings were held right here in Vienna—one for the town and one in our church parking lot. Two groups in our area began out of that experience—the weekly (now monthly) Friday Racial Reconciliation and Justice prayer calls as well as the monthly UnComfortable Courageous Conversations. Our Ministry of Racial Reconciliation and Healing (MRRH) was eventually born. 

This week our sermon series on Nehemiah began. The first chapter gives background that sets up what is to come. When Nehemiah inquires about the situation in Jerusalem, he hears, “The survivors there in the province who escaped captivity are in great trouble and shame; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been destroyed by fire.” 

The city of Jerusalem had been sacked 141 years before. Rebuilding efforts had been going on for decades. Perhaps Nehemiah thought things were going better than they were. But for whatever reason, the news hits him hard: “When I heard these words I sat down and wept, and mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven.”  

Clearly, Nehemiah’s heart is broken by the things that break God’s heart. It’s not just that the physical structures are collapsed. Nehemiah understands that the city of Jerusalem has been and will continue to be the center of God’s redemptive plan of salvation. God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises is in question. The goodness and glory of the one true God is not being proclaimed to the nations, and Nehemiah is brokenhearted about it. 

We are in a critical period in our life in the world with the ongoing pandemic and in our church as we move into a new era of ministry with our new lead pastor Hope. Nehemiah’s example can speak to us about how we can respond. Do we see the world the way God sees the world? Do we understand the role of God’s church in the world? Does our heart break for the things that break God’s heart?  

Nehemiah’s broken heart leads him to engage in two important spiritual disciplines that often go together—fasting and prayer. Fasting is a discipline of detachment. We let go of food, we deny ourselves a substance that is necessary for physical life so that we can get in touch with a hunger for God and to cultivate a heart for the things that matter to him.  

But fasting doesn’t have to be only from food. What might God be inviting us to abstain from in order to give more time and space to our relationship with him? This can be food, caffeine, and alcohol, but it can also be TV, technology, or some recreational activity that takes a lot of our time and energy.   

There are things that are necessary for our life in this world, but we can become inordinately attached to things—even good and necessary things. Fasting helps us to attend to those disordered attachments and to realign our priorities with Christ and his kingdom.   

“Giving up something” is meant to free up time and space to attend to our relationship with God. Prayer is the way we live in our interactive relationship with God.  It may be that we stop doing some things in order to spend more time listening to and pouring out our hearts to God in prayer.  

Nehemiah shows us how to pray. Prayer isn’t coming up with our lists of what we think God ought to do and putting pressure on him to do. Prayer is asking God to do what he has promised to do—to be true to his word, which he always is. Nehemiah begins his prayer, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. . . .” 

 I asked the women in Bible study earlier this week this question: How great is your God? Our understanding and view of God influences how we see ourselves and how we live our lives. In his book Your God Is Too Small, J. B. Phillips explains that the trouble facing many of us today is that we have not found a God big enough to meet our modern needs. We need to expand our view of God, and one way we can do that is by studying and knowing the truth revealed in God’s word. Then we can praise God for who he is and intercede by claiming his promises as revealed in scripture.  

Nehemiah also prays by confessing not only the sins of the nation of Israel but also acknowledging his own personal sin and that of his family. Nehemiah acknowledges that God’s people are those he loves with an everlasting love with whom he has made a covenant but who have also sinned against him. Even though he has loved them with a steadfast love, they have failed to love and obey him. 

I am reminded of the words of Tim Keller: “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”  

Confession is a great gift that helps us to experience the unconditional love and amazing grace that we already have in Jesus. Confession means to agree with God. We agree with God that we have sinned in thought, word, or deed. But we also agree that we are deeply loved and completely forgiven—not because of who we are or what we have done but because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus our Lord. We can believe and live this reality because God is faithful to his word, to his promises. 

The coming months will be important ones for us as individuals, families, a church, a nation, and the world. What a gift to be studying Nehemiah! But applying what we are learning will be the key to real change. The spiritual disciplines of fasting, prayer, and confession are means of grace—ways that our broken hearts can respond to God in faith. The disciplines don’t change us. Only the Holy Spirit can do that, but he will do what he promises to do as we open ourselves and give ourselves to him.  

I don’t know about you, but I am excited and expectant about what God will do as we look to him, trust him, and allow him to do in and through and for us what only he can do by his grace and power.