Let’s be those who set our hearts, but let’s also set our alarms! Don’t laze around! Don’t sit on your hands. Make efforts to seek His face. Make plans to be godly. And may God help us to seek Him more diligently.

And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.
Nehemiah 4:9

I recently wrote a post calling us to set our hearts if we’re really going to obey Jesus. We must set our hearts to seek God. Nehemiah is an example of this. He encouraged real faithfulness in Israel. You see the returned exiles putting their shoulders to the task of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and rebuilding the temple, even in the face of extreme opposition. They were a prayerful people. They were trusting in the Lord. But they weren’t only prayerful.

“And we prayed to our God…” They prayed to God for protection, but what else did they do? “…and set a guard as a protection” (Neh 4:9). They prayed and they set a guard. I love this. When we are pursuing faithfulness to God, do we do these two things? Do we pray? And when we pray, do we set a guard? Prayer is not an excuse for inaction. On the contrary, prayer is an excuse to be even more active! An increase in activity is not a sign of lack of faith, but rather it is the sign of greater faith.

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