“For the good hand of his God was on him.”
(Ezra 7:9 ESV) For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him.
The news of wars on multiple fronts, a worldwide economic plunge, global warming, who won or didn’t win in the last elections, stem cell research and the ethics thereof, the prospect that the U.S. may not be as dominant as it has been in the past are all things that could and probably should bother all of us.
But we just cannot forget that God is God.
Ezra did not forget this; he made it a point to remember God and to be in a place where God could work in his life. The hand of God was not on him by accident. He lived in a foreign land under the rule of a pagan king and God used that king and his wealth to send Ezra back home for rebuilding his land.
The biblical accounts during the captivity of Israel, when God threw them out of the land for their disobedience and disloyalty, are to me some of the most powerful statements of a good and powerful God in the Bible. Humanly speaking Ezra had no reason to expect anything that happened to him as far as going back to Jerusalem.
God did it.
And that is why I would like to encourage/exhort you and me to consider our priorities and maybe revamp our worry list.
How concerned am I about being in the right place spiritually where it would be written “the hand of his God was on him.”
News of the economy and politics and war and violence on our streets has too much sway because we forget where we are and who we are.
All of this is played out before God. Everything is within his sovereign rule and providential care. God is good and he is great.
(Romans 8:28 ESV) And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
This is true, every word and more. But you have to have be in the right place which is on a path following Jesus the Son of God, being led by and walking by the Holy Spirit of God, living by his words, trusting him, serving him, worshiping him.
But often we are not in a place to see and sense the presence of God. Too much of life under the sun both good and bad distracts us from the greater things.
We do not see the sovereign care of God unless we are bowed before him. We don’t sense his providence if we do not attend to our spiritual needs. Our receptors are dirty and out of focus, or we have too much traffic from earth to hear anything heaven says.
Read the following and be amazed. This would be like living in Iran today and having Seyed Mohammad Khatami, the current president, send us back home to the U.S. to evangelize the inner cities using money from their oil operations.
(Ezra 7:21-23 ESV “And I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province Beyond the River: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven, requires of you, let it be done with all diligence, (22) up to 100 talents of silver, 100 cors of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. (23) Whatever is decreed by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons.”
Nothing on Earth would have suggested that Ezra would be able to do what he did. The politics were wrong, his geography was wrong, insufficient resources. Poor fellow. All he had was this – “the good hand of his God was on him.”
Shouldn’t we consider this a priority, to have “the good hand of his God” upon us. Talk about seats at the 50-yard line!
