Tuesday 15 December 2015

Undercurrents

Ezra 4:1-5
Resistance to Rebuilding the Temple
When the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to the Lord, the God of Israel, they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of families and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of King Esar-haddon of Assyria who brought us here.” But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of families in Israel said to them, “You shall have no part with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus of Persia has commanded us.”
Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah, and made them afraid to build, and they bribed officials to frustrate their plan throughout the reign of King Cyrus of Persia and until the reign of King Darius of Persia.

In every task
there will always be discouragers
Those who feel left out
Those who resent others
getting on with the work in hand - 
especially when they're making a good job of it.
Not everything can be wholly embracing,
not when the outcome will be compromised
Discernment and instinct
should not be overruled
by the desire to be inclusive.
Even when we know
there will be a price to pay.

Prayer
Lord, in our desire to embrace, help us not to sell out. 
In our desire to compromise, help us not to let what is important slide into oblivion.
Give us wisdom to discern when it is appropriate to simply say no - and then to live with the consequence.

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