Trust God!

This week we have seen that the "tag-team" of prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, supported the discouraged people as they began again on the work of rebuilding God's temple.
We've seen that the people were encouraged to get a fresh look at God's Word, to stop comparing themselves to others, to speak up and witness, and to get to work (hard!) for the Lord.

The last thing we need to learn from this chapter (Ezra 5) is to simply trust God to accomplish His will through us.
All the while, even in the years of delay, behind the events of the renewal of God's people and their homeland -- all the while, God was at work. God was observing and moving in the lives of His people. The re-establishment of the Jewish covenant community was the result of His providence.

Let's face it - that governor allowed the work on the temple to continue! He could have put his foot down and said, "No more work until I hear from the king! This is my territory, and I can't take the chance on being blamed for a problem! Put those tools down!"
But instead, the work went on while the inquiry was sent to Darius. This was a direct result and a proof that God's eye was on His people. It's a fact: God used and coordinated all of the words He gave to the prophets, the work of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the enthusiasm of the people, the tales of the tattlers, and even the decisions of pagan government officials . . . all in order to fulfill His purpose.

It's obvious, too, that the people's interest and pride in their heritage had been rekindled. In their ringing witness to the governor, they detailed the sovereign dealings of God in their history. They went back to the beginning and told the story with certainty and conviction. Since the stories were vivid and fresh in their minds, we can see that this enabled them to put their current situation into proper perspective. They kept these facts in their memories and their imaginations, and relied upon them as proofs of their relationship with God.

So, we, too, can apply this to our lives, because our faith is tied to the fact that God made promises and then fulfilled them -- even to the point of sending His own Son. Jesus Christ came to earth and lived, died, and rose again; all of the scriptures were fulfilled regarding the Messiah, in Jesus' life, His death, and His resurrection.
As we work to bring glory to our sovereign God, we can rest assured that the decisions we make, and the work that we do, all affects history:

for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Philippians 2:13)

As we work for the Lord, we need to remind ourselves that we are working in harmony with the sovereign God Who is working out His purposes in history - through His people. What a privilege to be part of the plan!  What a recipe for encouragement - when we are discouraged, we can trust God to accomplish His will through us!
We will see as we continue to study that the temple was completed a little over seventy years after its destruction. There was great rejoicing as the people returned there to celebrate the Passover.
We can scoot forward just a bit to glimpse a verse:

For seven days they celebrated with joy the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because the Lord had filled them with joy by changing the attitude of the king of Assyria so that he assisted them in the work on the house of God, the God of Israel. (Ezra 6:22)

Talk about having the correct perspective on things! When our discouragement is transformed into encouragement, it's because of God - He gets all the glory as we trust Him to accomplish His purposes.

Many pastors use an old story that I thought I would include here:

The devil had a garage sale . . . he marked all of his tools with their appropriate prices: hatred, envy, lust, deceit, lying, and pride. Laid apart from all of these was a rather harmless looking but well-worn tool that was marked much higher than the rest. A buyer pointed to it and asked, "What is that tool?" The devil replied, "That is discouragement." "Why is it priced so high, " the man asked. "Because it is more useful to me than the others.  I can pry open a man or a woman's heart with that when I can't make progress with the other tools. Once inside, I can make that man or woman do whatever I choose. It's so badly worn because I use it on almost everyone. But very few know that it belongs to me." The devil's price was so high that the tool of discouragement was never sold.

He still uses it on God's people, today. But by God's grace, through His Word, we can overcome discouragement.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (I Corinthians 15:58)