Ezra 7 NLT
Praise the Lord, the God of our ancestors, who made the king want to beautify the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem! And praise him for demonstrating such unfailing love to me by honoring me before the king, his council, and all his mighty nobles! I felt encouraged because the gracious hand of the Lord my God was on me. And I gathered some of the leaders of Israel to return with me to Jerusalem. (27-28)
That phrase, “the gracious hand of the Lord was on us,” is repeated over and over again in the book of Ezra. It is a beautiful way of expressing God’s sovereignty and providence towards His people. It is also a fitting reminder to us of God’s power and of what it really takes to change things. If you remember, Ezra was chosen by God to return from Babylon with the exiles and to rebuild the temple. Much like his counterpart Nehemiah (who rebuilt the wall), it is an incredible story of how God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. In this book, we read how Ezra is commissioned to teach the people the word of God and to help the people follow through on the lessons learned the hard way after years of exile in a foreign land.
What is so simple, and yet profound, in this book is that this was completely a work of God. There was nothing winsome or compelling about Ezra that made him convince the King to let him go back to Jerusalem. On the contrary, as you read the text you discover that God Himself had already put it in the heart of Artaxerxes (a pagan king) to send the Israelites back and to completely fund the rebuilding of their temple. He gave everything to Ezra that he needed to complete the work; He gave him his authority, his wealth, and the freedom to get things done as Ezra saw fit. It is hard to know what circumstances could have prompted him to show such kindness to the Jews—as far as we know it was just a divine movement of God upon his heart. Either way, Ezra makes it clear that God did it all.
This is extremely instructive for us today. I think that we often spend more time trying to develop clever strategies or finding ways to manipulate our circumstances when the most productive thing we could do is simply pray and trust the Lord to work. Can you imagine what it would like in your context if the “gracious hand of the Lord” was on you? This is what we need. We need God to do a divine work in the hearts of those who are in authority, we need God to grant us grace and favor in the eyes of those who are typically opposed to His Kingdom, and we need the Lord to do what only He can do. We need God’s hand to be so evident that it is obvious to all that it has absolutely nothing to do with us and everything to do with Him. We need to believe that He can do it, and then give Him all the glory when He does.
