Restoration & Rebuilding

Day 34 & 35

Ezra & Nehemiah

Both of these are in some way about restoration. About prayer, trust, and the law as a foundation of society. 

God answers the prayers of his faithful people, God can bring reform in unfaithfulness, and God protects his chosen people.  He works in and through us to accomplish his plan.

I can relate with these readings in that at times I've felt exiled.  From God, from whomever.  Felt there needed to be a personal time of purging and purification. Of confession about disobedience.  So that spiritual refinement can then be found.  Rebuilding started.  Revival begun.

In these books it was restoration of a people, a country, a temple, and a covenant.

For us it can be our family, our community, our church, our country.

Nehemiah's willingness to leave the security of the present for the unknown of the future teaches us trust and daily dependence on God.

Faith isn't easy. Habits are hard to break. As we see time and time again in a leader or a country falling back into familiar patterns of disobedience.

Sometimes we need to decide enough is enough with our fizzled out faith or lackluster love for our Lord -- and decide to "wholeheartedly" do what Nehemiah 2:18 says... 

"Let us start rebuilding." 

And how can we do that?

Nehemiah 8:10 tells us how...

"...the joy of the Lord is your strength."

Wholehearted Humility

Days 32 & 33

2 Chronicles

2 Chronicles shows how the nation (or person) who honors God will be a success.  That being a faithful follower is rewarded and being a disobedient doubter is punished.  Solomon's wise beginnings end with a succession of disobedient kings, mixed in with the faithful few.  I don't know why so many of them chose disobedience, but make no mistake, it was their choice.  They were given the tools for success, and they still chose disobedience that would lead to ultimate destruction.

One thing that baffles me, is just how loving our loving God truly is.  Through all these chapters, all these books, no matter how absolutely tiring it all must have been to God in seeing the same ol' disobedience, -- he still forgives them.  He still loves them.  He will never quit on them.

That comforts me because at times, I'm just like them!

I guess that's why 2 Chronicles 7:14 is in there.
"...if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

I have a quote on my iPhone notes, I heard it on a television show I was watching I believe, and it's simply:  "Pride is a foolish man's burden."

I came up with the below quote for myself in response to that, and with this new found respect for obedience, remind myself of it daily:  "Humility is a wise man's freedom." 

In 2 Chronicles 12:5-8 it speaks of humility.  "This is what the Lord says, 'You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak.'"  The leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, "The Lord is just."  When the Lord saw that they humbled themselves, this word of the Lord came to Shemaiah:  "Since they have humbled themselves, I will not destroy them but will soon give them deliverance."

Again in this book, I see those words "wholehearted" again... 

In 2 Chronicles 6:14, "O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth -- you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way."

In 2 Chronicles 19:9, "You must serve faithfully and wholeheartedly in the fear of the Lord."

I'll end with 2 Chronicles 20:20-21 which says, "Listen to me, Judah and people of Jerusalem!  Have faith in the Lord your God and you will be upheld; have faith in his prophets and you will be successful."  After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying:  "Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever."

Indeed it does...