God is in Control, But …
Ezra 10:4,5 “Get up, Ezra. This is your responsibility, but we will support you. So be brave and do it.” So Ezra got up. He made the leading priests, the Levites, and all the Israelites promise to do what he said.
When we’re confronted with some daunting task, something that we really don’t want to do, the easiest thing in the world for us to do is to put it off.
I heard someone refer to that once as “proactive procrastination” – a deliberate strategy of mastering inactivity. Or, as one cartoon character once put it, we should never do today, that which we can put off until tomorrow. We’ve all been there. And the extension of that is simply to leave it to God. It’s not my problem, it’s His!
Back in the day, the scribe, Ezra – one of Israel’s greatest leaders – had a difficult task before him; to call the nation to account for their appalling behaviour in the face of God’s favour. God had been faithful, restoring Israel to the Promised Land but they, once again, had been unfaithful. He can’t have been looking forward to it. So God spoke to him through a man called Shecaniah, who said this:
Ezra 10:4,5 “Get up, Ezra. This is your responsibility, but we will support you. So be brave and do it.” So Ezra got up. He made the leading priests, the Levites, and all the Israelites promise to do what he said.
Perhaps you’ve been putting off a difficult task, hoping to push it off onto God, and today you hear Him telling you that it’s your responsibility. But, but, but … God’s in control. Can’t He do it?
Yes, God is in control – but He doesn’t expect you to lean on your shovel and pray for a hole. There are things that we are capable of doing, even if they’re unpleasant, even if they stretch us. So get up, this is your responsibility. Be brave and do it.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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