We Can't Wait!

Ezra 3

To better understand the many stories of the Bible I do a couple of things. First, I do my best to visualize the story, to picture all the sights and hear all the sounds within the story, and I also try to put myself in the middle of each story, I picture myself as one in the middle of the crowd seeing what is going on and feeling all the emotions that surround the event. As I read through chapter 3 of Ezra, my heart became excited when the people built the alter and gave the appropriate sacrifices to the Lord, even before the foundation was laid and with fear of the people that surrounded them, they put God first and showed the world how they felt. Then I began to cry when the older people wept aloud after seeing the new foundation laid. I am sure they had seen so much in their time, they had witnessed the betrayal of God's people, God's destruction, and now God's restructuring---how happy and sad they must have been. I also listened, as best I could, to the weeping and shouting that was so loud you couldn't tell them apart. So after reading this several times and my mind racing with so many different thoughts, God revealed to me that the point of this story is that His people didn't wait until everything was rebuilt, they didn't wait until everything was just right, they didn't wait to serve God, they didn't wait to build an alter and offer sacrifices, they didn't wait for the people they feared to move, and they didn't wait to shout His praises. They didn't wait and neither can we. We can't wait until our lives are going good, we can't wait until we have enough time, we can't wait until we have enough money, we can't wait until we are healed, we can't wait until we have the right job, we can't wait to sacrifice our lives for Christ's sake. We cannot wait, we have to do what we have been called to do now. The word tells us in Luke 16:10 "If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won't be honest with greater responsibilities." If God has called you, he has called you! It doesn't matter if we think the calling is 'great' or 'small', it is a calling of God and we are called to fulfill it regardless of anything that seems to be lacking in our lives.