In worship, I heard the Lord say: Sometimes I have to take away in order to give. To give something new, and this is not going to be your version of new. It will be my version of new.
Sometimes you have to lose the old in order to want the new. You may have to lose your job and your income to see how it was killing you, how it was controlling you, how it had become your identity. You were about to gain a very small piece of the world and lose your eternal soul.
Here we are as a people, as a nation, the U.S. on the brink of bankruptcy, already there but unwilling to see it. We have sold our souls, and how do we get them back?
Some take part in tea parties. They seek revolution and a newer Messiah. Some strap on weapons and make a show of it. From the air and the screen comes talk, talk, and more talk; conjecture, diatribe, confusion, escalating everything, accomplishing nothing.
The world waits with eager expectation–for a solution.
The only one that works was long ago rejected.
A famous saying instructs that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Long ago, the people of God were taken into captivity. God allowed it, in His mercy and in His wrath.
His sweet chosen tribe had followed other gods (of provision and sexuality) and forsaken their covenant with Him. So, He lifted His hand of protection.
Out of this came many lessons learned, not the least of which is that God is faithful and God is merciful. He restores. He continues to seek His own, like a man named Nehemiah, who heard the call to inspect Jerusalem in its ruin. Walking amid debris, he set his face to do something. He called others to action.
Each man began to repair the city wall in front of his own home.
So too can we.
Decades earlier, Joshua led these people into their promised land and told them: Choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Make your choice and take your place on the wall. Begin to build, but this time, build for the Lord’s Kingdom.
The Agony of Victory 