Study from God’s Word… Zechariah, Chapters 1 - 6 … Passage for Reflection: Zechariah 4: 6 … NIV So He said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might or power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
My Journal for Today: Zechariah, the younger of the two post-exilic prophets (along with Haggai) must’ve had a challenging calling, … to give the truth about the rebuilding of the Temple to a very self-indulgent culture, … and to challenge them about a future which could not be seen in those times, … a message dealing with One, called “The Branch,” Who would come to redeem God’s peoples into a great and glorious kingdom on earth.
Are you the type, like yours truly, who will slam a door shut on a drawer where something cannot be found; or possibly you’d join me as one who’d kick a tire which has gone flat? Common! Surely I’m not the only fool who’s done foolish things like that when things seemed out of control or hapless – if not hopeless.
When there’s a task at hand which seems way beyond our reach, we tend to get frustrated, which can lead to anger, … which, in turn, can lead to striking out in some way. It’s like the very human response when one looks in a mirror and sees something we don’t want to see. Oh how frustrating it can be to see all those excess pounds, knowing that trying to do something about it seems almost impossible.
So, our hopeless frustration can lead to angry reactions which point us either inward to selfish action or outward to faith responses, … which, in the latter case, will prove much more productive if we can pin our hopes on the ONE, TRUE GOD, Who will always have THE answer and THE way, IF the task at hand is in HIS will.
As Dr. Smith so rightly points out in today’s devotional entry, involving today’s text reference, ”Whereas God might leave us to our OWN devices to accomplish goals of our own making, of one thing we can be sure: If the task ahead is God’s own plan, there is no way we can fail!” And this is something I should have remembered when I slammed a drawer shut a while ago, breaking the drawer, when what I was looking for and could not find had nothing to do with anything of Godly significance.
Oh, the working out and faith in the truth of a Romans 8: 28 can be so frustrating, especially when we place the emphasis on SELF rather than SAVIOR. But when we believe in such truths, from God Himself through His word, we can be certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that what is going on is for our good, no matter how bad it may seem. And that is as true today as it was in the times of Zechariah.
Do we truly believe that God (and His truth) is the same yesterday, TODAY, and tomorrow? Answer that one – in faith – and we’ll save ourselves much frustration, anger, and reaction to the challenges of this life.
My Prayer for Today: O Lord, help me in my unbelief! Amen
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