The good hand of my God upon me

Nehemiah 2:8b

“And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.”

Do we want God to prosper our work? Do we want something good to come out of our efforts? There is only one way for this to happen. The king could grant Nehemiah his request. The king could also choose to reject his desire to go back to his homeland and build the wall of Jerusalem. The king could have stopped him. But there was one thing that Artaxerxes the king could not stand against. And that was the good hand of God upon Nehemiah. Nehemiah recognized that the reason he had favor with the king and the reason that he now had been permitted to return to Jerusalem to visit his people and repair that which was broken down was only that God’s hand was upon him. He could only prosper if the God of Heaven would prosper him! And do we not see that the same is true of us? We may request. We may seek after something. We may petition our leaders for something. We may give all of our effort to the work of God, and labor night and day to bring to pass some sort of change. But, dear friends, do not ever forget, that the one thing that is necessary in order to see an execution of those things that we are putting our hands to is the good hand of our God upon us.

The good hand of my God upon me! Let it be upon me! Let it be upon you! For without it, we are nothing! Without it, all work is in vain, and it is all meaningless, powerless, and without effect or impact. No change will come! Nothing will ever happen! Nothing! If God’s hand is not upon us. I crave it! I desire it! I want it above my chief joy! It is the greatest and highest and loftiest goal—that we may have His hand upon us. Would you pray now to the God of Heaven that His hand would be upon you? For without it, all our work is of no value.

“Dear God in Heaven, we want You this day. We want Your hand to be good upon us. Otherwise, we have no reason to seek to accomplish anything. For it will have no lasting impact. It shall be only transitory; it shall not last the test of time. But we know, that if Your hand is upon us, we may see the mighty works of God accomplished through us, and we may see great change occur in our nation and in our lives and in the lives of others. We long for Your hand to be upon us! Therefore, we bring our supplication before Thee, knowing that Thou dost hear us. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.”