When you're facing a seemingly impossible task, when should you take action?

If after you have spent time fasting and praying, you still have fear, does that mean you should wait?

That you need to pray more, you're not trusting God?

Well, here are the answers today on Truth for Life as Alastair Begg takes us to the book of Nehemiah,

we're in chapter 1, verse 5.

Now, I want for a moment this morning to consider this prayer with you as it is therefore as in chapter 1,

and then to move immediately into chapter 2.

One of the questions that is often asked, especially by younger believers, is how do you pray?

Well, one of the things that has been helpful to many of us, and certainly in my life I've used it since I was smaller,

is to use the little acronym or Acrostic Acts, ACTS, and the four words that build from it, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication.

And I want to show you from this prayer that the acts, acronym works in relationship to Nehemiah's prayer.

The fourth element in prayer is what we refer to as supplication, as the S in the word acts, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication.

And as supplication comes in verse 11, O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this, your servant, and to the prayer of your servants,

who delight in revering your name, and here it comes, it is as bold as it is specific, and it is as reverent as it is clear.

Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.

He asks specifically that God will give him favor in the presence of his boss.

I have this boss, I'm going to talk to my boss, the first chance I get, and Lord, I'm talking to you first to see if you couldn't be at work in his life because I know that would make a big difference.

However, if we do not believe that God is able to work in the heart of a pagan king or in the mind of a pagan boss, then we will be on our feet all the time in human ingenuity trying to find ways to make it happen.

But when we truly trust in God, we can shut up on our feet and open up on our knees so that we will discover that God moves man through prayer.

When I don't believe that he moves man through prayer, I will be constantly on my feet trying to move man myself.

It's a great challenge, great challenge for our church.

Now, there is an obvious link between the length of time that now Maya takes seeking the face of God and then this specific way in which he approaches the face of art exerxes.

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