The Severe Mercy in “Nehemiah, The Praying Builder”

A public-domain paper on prayer from E. M. Bounds, presented for focused reading and spiritual formation.

Prayer is not an escape hatch from the world. In the older Christian writers, it is usually the opposite: a way of standing still long enough for God to tell the truth about the world and about us.

If the line feels severe, stay with it. Severity in the saints is often just mercy without cosmetics.