“Now Tobiah the Ammonite…said, ‘Whatever they build, if even a fox goes up on it, he will break down their stone wall.’ Hear, O our God, for we are despised; turn their reproach on their own heads…for they have provoked You to anger before the builders. So we built the wall…” (Neh 4:3-6).
Don’t you love it? The enemy is trying to demoralize Nehemiah and the workers on the wall. He doesn’t even answer Tobiah. He is, as Paul says, “instant in prayer,” bringing God into the conversation without missing a beat! And he acknowledges that God has been there all along: “they have provoked You.”
John R. Rice writes: “…pray about things as they come up. I found it impossible to remember all the requests for prayer that would come to me in a day’s time…so I formed a habit of stopping to pray for every case about which I was impressed I ought to pray, at the time it was mentioned….I have found a great peace in going to God with every burden the moment I feel the need for prayer about it.”