Hesed when it doesn’t feel like it
By Matt Watson
The book of Nehemiah is a manual for those living in exile to contend for the future. As God’s people, we cannot do that without his hesed. Hesed is one of those tricky Hebrew words that have no direct equivalent in English. We translate it variously as “unfailing love, loyal love, devotion, kindness, often based on a prior relationship, especially a covenant relationship.”1
We’ve studied God’s hesed in Judges, Ruth, and even in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, because it is a major characteristic of who God is. It is how the Lord identifies himself in the covenant he makes with Moses and Israel:
“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
Exodus 34:6–7 ESV
But here is a primary thing we need to remember: hesed isn’t about our circumstances, it’s about God’s faithfulness.
In the midst of our singleness, infertility, or whatever, God's hesed isn't necessarily about changing that, because it is not about us. Remembering God’s hesed helps us in our circumstances, but it’s not about them. It is about the unfailing character of God, his goodness, loving-kindness, and covenantal love. When I remember who God is in the midst of my circumstances, I learn to be grateful for the grace I do have rather than be resentful (or regretful) of the grace I don’t have. Nehemiah is a model for us in remembering God in horrible situations.
When empires conquer, they kill those who resist, deport others across the empire, and take the best and brightest to indoctrinate them into the empire’s culture. They set up a friendly governor over the conquered territory to rule over the people who were left behind so that fields would still be plowed and vineyards planted, but with minimized resistance.
This is what happened to Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego by the Babylonians and Nehemiah by the Persians. They were taken to the capital and were taught to be good Persians. Yet, even though they had positions in the government, they each kept the faith and resisted tyranny and idolatry. In Nehemiah's case, he was so trusted he was the cupbearer to the emperor. The cupbearer has the best chance of assassinating the king by poisoning his cup, and conversely also has the best chance of being poisoned, as they were supposed to drink the wine before offering it to their liege. Nehemiah was trusted and therefore had the ear of the emperor.
So in Nehemiah 1, we read that one day he is going about his duties when his brother came back from conquered Judah. He learned that “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire” (Neh 1:3 ESV).
When Nehemiah heard the news about Israel, his response was threefold: 1) he mourned, weeping for days, 2) he prayed, including confessing the sins of the people to God, and 3) he reminded himself of God’s faithfulness. As a response to heavy and devastating news, he prayed,
“O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.”
Nehemiah 1:5 ESV
God’s hesed is the key to enduring trials and tribulations of all kinds. Nehemiah was an exile in a foreign land serving a king who conquered his people, but he trusted God’s character rather than his circumstances. When life is falling apart, when our finances are in a wreck, when there are impassable rifts in our relationships, when there is death, rejection, and sickness, we need to remember God is in control of all the pieces that we aren’t.
One practical reason for this is that it does us no good to be anxious over things outside of our control. They will happen, or not, according to how God wants them to happen. A deeper reason is that remembering God’s hesed also helps us reframe our thinking, training us to see our circumstances through the lens of truth rather than our emotions. This helps us worship God more completely (with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, cf. Mark 12:28-31; Matt 22:34-40; Deut 6:5). Therefore, God’s faithfulness is “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul (Heb 6:19).
And yet, that is one of the most challenging things for us to believe and do. “There is no way” is a cancerous and arrogant mentality when considering what the Living God, the creator of the universe and everything in it, can handle.
Let this be a challenge for us all: that we live in the truth of who God is, rather than in the emotions of our circumstances, because God is not only bigger than them, but his love is greater for us beyond what we can imagine.
1 William D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), 937–938.
Thank you to my community group, who is always forced to be a sounding board for what I am processing. In this case the major ideas in this article came from them.
This article was originally published by Matthew Watson with Awake! Put on strength!, and is used under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.