As 2013 kicked off last month, I began to pray about where in the Bible I should devote some focused time this year. After about six weeks of praying and discerning, I have landed on five OT books of the Bible that I'm going to study in some depth for a season: Ezra, Haggai, Zechariah, Nehemiah, and Malachi...all books centered on God's commissioning His people to REBUILD the temple and the wall in Jerusalem. I hope to journey into these books with a Christian community development lens and share some impressions Wednesdays on the blog.
God is in Charge!
Ezra 1:1 "In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm..."
Ezra 1:5 "Then the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and Levites- everyone whose heart God had moved- prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.
The scope of God's sovereignty is so beyond my understanding! His ability to move hearts, minds, and lives (believers and nonbelievers alike) to fulfill His purposes without any of our own conscious doing is so awesome. Verses like these above help me to trust God in His perfect timing and plan. And verses like these give me comfort when I feel like I'm "missing it". Verses like these humble me when I get a faulty thought process that I have to make something happen or that something is "all up to me." God is so much bigger and able than my limited and self-reliant mind can ever hope for or imagine.
As we work toward Christ's shalom and community strengthening, I find these verses in Ezra encourage me toward faith and anticipation that God, in His power and timing, WILL act to move hearts and lives for the rebuilding that is needed.
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