“Remember, I pray, the word that You commanded Your servant Moses, saying…” (Neh 1:8).
Nehemiah clearly was “instant in prayer.” His first-person narrative (one of the few in Scripture) is a running conversation with the Lord. Notice 4:1-6. When Sanballat and Tobiah started hurling mockery over the wall at his workers, Nehemiah simply included the Lord in the “conversation”: “Hear, O our God, for we are despised;… for they have provoked You to anger before the builders.” He knew the Lord so well that he knew He would be angry at this. He was saying, “Lord, I know You’re here with us, and I know this upsets You, too; we’ll leave this problem with You.” Then he went back to building!
Notice his word “remember.” He uses it eight times in his prayers in the book. He was not suggesting that the Lord forgets. Here he was simply citing the portion of God’s Word that he was counting on for an answer. Let’s do that today: praying God’s promises up to Him for fulfillment in the lives of those we love.