I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you.7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. (Nehemiah 1:6-7)

(Note: If you’re just joining us, for this week’s Connect Devotional I’m recapping the daily exercises that I ended the message with this past Sunday. If you missed the message, you can watch and/or listen to it here.)

After Nehemiah asks his question, hears the bad news, and laments for several months (grieving over broken things before God as preparation for action with God), he shares this summary prayer.  It’s a prayer confessing the sins of his people for generations.

Nehemiah wasn’t even alive 150 years ago when Jerusalem was conquered, nor was he around as God sent prophet after prophet in the 50-100 years prior that warned of the coming catastrophe if they did not repent. It doesn’t matter. 

Nehemiah knows that if he does not own the whole problem he cannot be a part of the permanent solution. For 150 years no one’s done anything about the burnt-out Jerusalem problem. In order to see a solution it’s going to require a new approach. 

Not every problem that you see is yours to own (Merry Christmas four months early!), but we believe that God has put each of us here to own some problem, somewhere, especially in this season. That might be in your home or workplace or in your own heart. That might be a neighbor or family member. It might be a local business or non-profit that you want to help out. It might be a problem in our community or nation.

And it might start with the spiritual work of confessing sin. Not every difficult situation is the direct result of someone’s deliberate sin, but some are. And part of rebuilding something that matters and that endures is owning the whole problem.

As you think about the problem that God’s inviting you to step into, what do you think it means to own the whole problem? Is there sin that you could confess—even sins that you’ve had nothing to do with? In what other ways might you own the whole problem in order to be a part of the long-term, permanent solution?