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Nehemiah 1:4 And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven,

The beginning of a new year gives us as clean slate, and new beginning. But it also gives an opportunity for clear evaluation the last year. And sometimes we don’t like what we see.

That close look brings memories of failure, or mistakes.

And we often want to sweep those under the rug……

But God would have us embrace them instead.

In Nehemiah chapter one the kings cupbearer has his world rocked with the realization that Jerusalem had no protection. This affects him deeply because it puts the Jews in danger, and Nehemiah had not checked on the walls condition before. The failure of Nehemiah brought shock (he sat down) and sorrow (Weeping and mourning).

We can’t blame Nehemiah for this because sorrow and shame are natural responses when you make a mistake.

The important thing is Nehemiah didn’t stop with sorrow.

He moved on to sanctification.

The fasting in this chapter (1:4) would refer to a confession and repentance in the heart of Nehemiah over his sin. This led to a beautiful prayer of confession in the remainer of the chapter (1:5-11). A prayer that owns sin, and seeks the restoration of God.

Nehemiah did mourn his failure before the Lord in shame and tears.

But then He TURNED FROM THAT FAILURE in sanctification, and supplication.

And this only happened as he embraced that failure.

Embracing or owning our failure is hard. We would rather feel the shame for a short time, and then move on from it as quickly as possible. This is understandable since nobody likes feeling sad. But God uses that failure to shine a light upon the sin in our lives. The heartfelt prayer of repentance from

Nehemiah came because the shock of that moment was a 2,000 lumen light shining on his neglect of the Jewish people.

The easy thing would have been to run from that feeling of shame….but Nehemiah allowed it to turn his sinful heart towards confession, and repentance.

Shame dear friends is painful. But it is also a tool of God to show us our sinfulness, and draw us closer to His side.