Ezra 5 #FirstHour

And this is the answer they returned to us: ‘We are servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are building the house that was built formerly many years ago, which a great king of Israel had built and finished. But because our ancestors angered the God of heaven, he gave them into the hand of the Chaldean King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. He destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia. But in the first year of King Cyrus of Babylon’s reign he issued forth a decree to build this house of God.(Ezra 5:11‭-‬13 LEB)

Affliction may blind the eyes of faith of a child of God. It may obstruct how we look at the story of our lives. It covers the Big Story where we belong -- a story of redemption (gospel) and of commission (duty). Yet when affliction shuts it out, we make little stories -- stories of duties, of resolutions that we think are currencies to buy for us a story.

The returning Exiles had no currency but the merits of God's grace for who they were -- that God called them to be His servants. To this story they returned amidst their terrible blinding pressure and threats from ungodly spirits. They saw God as the Writer of the Story to which they belong. And that is why your duties must persist in the context of His grace. You persevere, because He preserves.

The eyes of faith in times of affliction may see that "surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:6).

Begin today by asking God for forgiveness and repentance for the sin that caused your affliction or extends your affliction such as overmuch sorrow or anger, etc. As that Puritan with a honeymouth would say, "God has more grace in Him, than din in you."

#FirstHour

PS

Piety hath a wondrous virtue to change all things into matter of consolation and joy. No condition in effect can be evil or sad to a pious man: his very sorrows are pleasant, his infirmities are wholesome, his wants enrich him, his disgraces adorn him, his burdens ease him; his duties are privileges, his falls are the grounds of advancement, his very sins (as breeding contrition, humility, circumspection, and vigilance), do better profit him: whereas impiety doth spoil every condition, doth corrupt and embase all good things, doth embitter all the conveniences and comforts of life.

—Isaac Barrow