New day, new book! Yippee! 😀
It’s always exciting to start something new isn’t it? And today that was part of our reading. In the beginning of Ezra the exiles of Jerusalem are heading home and beginning to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and the temple of God. It had to have been an exciting homecoming for sure! Yet when the foundation of the temple was laid, there were some who “wept with a loud voice”. It doesn’t explain why they wept, just shares with us that they did. And I have to wonder if perhaps it was because they felt as though the splendor of the second temple wasn’t quite up to par with the first. Or perhaps because they had seen the first destroyed and this new foundation caused them to remember that moment. Either way, there were loud shouts over this temple foundation, most of them joy.
This is what strikes me today, new foundations. Over this last month I have been pouring one of my own, working toward building a new school in Sheridan with a solid foundation of THE Rock of Jesus and the story of His everlasting Grace.
It has not been easy, but I have had a holy ease about it all. There is SO very much to do still, and every day the list gets longer, yet it has been good and productive and right. That’s the holy ease; when you’re working on something that just works.
But then demons report back to Satan about the work that you’re doing, the new foundations that you’re building, and the road blocks begin to spring up. Distraction has been my number one road block this month. With school starting back up for my kids, and friends wanting to spend time with me or at least call and talk (which ends up lasting for hours), I feel like things are starting to slip. I’m down to the wire at the moment. My school starts on September 3rd, I have thirteen days left for the concrete of my foundation to dry and cure. I hope pray that’s enough!
This is not any ordinary school. This will be a school that opened WILL cause Satan some serious trouble!
In today’s reading, the adversaries of Jerusalem went to the king of Persia and alerted him to this pending danger of the great city of Jerusalem being rebuilt. And the rebuilding process was ceased in Jerusalem almost immediately after. This, my friends, is precisely what Satan does. He does everything he can to make sure that any time you are laying a foundation that God has chosen to form; he is going to do everything in his power to stop it. And sometimes he succeeds.
My friends, we can’t let him. We can not let the Enemy of God stop us from doing what we know is right and good; which is what he is trying to do for all of us today.
Don’t let him stop you today. Whatever you do, fight Satan with everything you have in you.
Tamar Knochel 