Friday, October 1: Ezra 2- Daunting tasks

Well, I admit that this wasn’t the most spiritually engaging chapter to read, name upon name that meant little or nothing to me. Despite my initial blah-ness about the text, I found God’s Spirit beginning to work inside of me.

Names represent people… God had moved upon 42,000⁺ people to reestablish His temple in Jerusalem. To execute His will, God worked in the lives of all those people simultaneously. I pondered the amazing way God works orchestrating all things…

Next, I pondered the daunting task of these people. Their goal was to rebuild and reinstitute God honoring worship in Jerusalem after total destruction and 70-years of abandonment. I recently read Swiss Family Robinson, the story of a shipwrecked family who has to figure out how to live on a deserted island. These returnees had to figure out how to build the temple.  Did they have the skills and the fortitude to do this? What dedication they showed, pulling up roots from a fairly comfortable life to return to a land that they don’t know. After 70-years most the returnees were born in Babylon and didn’t know Jerusalem.

I thought about analogies to faith. When Jesus rescues me and saves me, I am in effect starting life over. I have been transported (Col 1:9) to a new land, a land I do not know. I have to learn how to live in this new land. Temptations come luring me to live like I used to live because that is what I know. I have to learn new rules of life for living in my new ‘land’… and this takes much dedication.

And so my mind turned this morning after reading a not-so-spiritually engaging chapter. I guess I was wrong, God had a great deal to show me in my time with Him this morning.

Lord, give me the fortitude of these returnees.  Give me the strength to follow You wherever You lead and the strength to do what I need to do to obey and live for You. In and through Jesus I pray, Amen.