…after Destruction is Not Easy

S: (ESV)

 Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build 5 and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.

6 And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.

Ezra 4:4-6  (cf. Ezra 1:1-8; 3; 7)

O: What we see in these passages today is first approval, then disapproval, and then another round of approval when it comes to re-building of the Temple in Jerusalem. First Cyrus approved and aided in sending and Jewish people and families who wanted to go, back to Jerusalem as long as they were willing to help with the rebuilding of the Temple. However, then next king to come along…Artaxerxes was convinced by his own counselors and advisors that any time the city of Jerusalem and the Temple became too powerful, it was to the detriment of the King of Persia, so he issued a decree to stop all building in the Temple. Then the next king to come to power in Persia was Darius, and after ordering a search off all of the records in Babylon, the decree issued by Cyrus was found and re-instated, and the Temple building was resumed, not only unhindered but encouraged and again paid for by the Persian empire.

A: This is almost the same pattern as we face with any project we take on in life. It doesn’t matter whether it is a building project, or a relationship project, or an economic project, the pattern is usually the same. There is great excitement and progress in the dreaming and planning stages; everything is going along without a hitch. Everyone is excited and eager and animated and constantly talking about what is happening and the progress that is being made. But then as the project continues and conflicts arise, and measurements start to collide with each other, the steam starts to disappear, nitpicking crops up, and disagreements start to fester; the process is starting to loom larger than the dream.

This is not unlike marriage in itself: this person catches your eye and your heart; your stomach does flips every time you see them and sometimes even when you just think about them; things become more and more familiar, and the progression continues to serious dating, actual courtship, engagement, and finally the marriage actually happens. And for quite a while sometimes even a few years, everything is fantastic. However, eventually, the dream of being able to spend every possible waking minute with this fantastic person turns into the nightmare of having to spend every possible waking minute with this…who is this person? What on earth was I thinking. Too often we forget about the dream and starting focusing on the dirty laundry, both literally and figuratively, the details start looming larger than the dream, and we start asking ourselves if we haven’t made a mistake. In a marriage there isn’t a human foreman who has the task of keeping the larger finished dream in focus. We have to rely on God to help us maintain our focus on the dream and what we originally saw in this person the made the dream work to begin with.

This is why it is so important to have the relationship with God right in the first place, before you get married; but how many of us can’t see the forest (the whole spiritual relationship with God and the emotional relationship with this person) for the trees (the strong arms, muscular legs, the breasts, the curve of the butt, and the cute little toes). So then we have to rebuild the emotional and spiritual relationships from within the marriage relationship, when there is so much other baggage that now has to be dealt with as well. If we would just stick to God’s plan in the first place, the entire program would go so much smoother.

P: Lord, help us to not forget about the dream, and if we have, to put the practices and processes in place to get the dream back in focus. Amen.