My husband of almost 15 years turns 37 today.  (Yes. If you’re doing the math, we absolutely were babies when we got married.)  As my mind ponders this man on this day, I am astounded at the gift he is to me.  I could not have designed for myself a better partner for this life - for ministry and family, for laughter and disagreement, for lazy days and hard labor, for loss and for gain.  And indeed, this past year has been for us one of great loss and greater gain. This year, we have bounded forward in confidence and also had our world shaken and changed in moments we couldn’t have anticipated.  We have received the loud, bold promises of God with joy and stood trembling in the silence desperate to hear a word from Him. We have grieved deeply. We have been amazed. We have feared what is to come and yet we have been poignantly grateful that we are not the ones writing this story of ours.  We have stood holding our breath as it seemed as if the enemy was winning the day, and we have finally exhaled in relief as we see the hand of God working good in all things. ALL things.

I believe, for many of you, your year has been like ours.  It has been hard. And our God has made it beautiful. He’s made it beautiful even when it seemed like He wouldn’t and even when we’d feared that He couldn’t.  When destruction came, he was there with us - “ever-present” as the writer of Psalm 46 declared. As the dust has settled, we have seen Him, slowly and carefully, get to the business of rebuilding.  

The Israelites of old - the people of God in the ancient world - experienced these same things.  And while our experiences of destruction and rebuilding are spiritual or metaphorical in nature, their experiences were very real.  Visceral. Physical. The destruction around them was rubble, smoldering fires, and the task of burying their dead according to the law of Moses.  They were carried off as slaves - forced into exile by conquering kings and tyrants who were as unlike their God as the cities they were forced to inhabit were unlike Jerusalem, their home.  Like us, they mourned. Like us, there was much to be learned - both about themes levels and their God - in these days. Like us, they experienced dissatisfaction, grief, homesickness, and a yearning for God to set things right.  

After many years as captives in Babylon and many transfers of power among the various rulers there, the Lord’s sovereignty seats Cyrus on the throne and inclines his heart dramatically toward the plight of the displaced people of God.  The book of Ezra opens with Cyrus’s decree that the Israelites be allowed to return to their homeland, that they should be given assistance from the people for provision, and that the city and temple of God be rebuilt. Cyrus empties his coffers of all articles stolen from the temple and sends the people back to rebuild freely, bearing great burdens of wealth and provision.  So they begin the work, eager to resume the sacrifices to God by which they worshipped and obeyed Him. Ezra 3 describes the situation as the temple foundation is laid and the sacrifices restored:

10 When the builders had laid the foundation of the Lord’s temple, the priests, dressed in their robes and holding trumpets, and the Levites descended rom Asaph, holding cymbals, took their positions to praise the Lord, as King David of Israel had instructed.  11 They sang with praise and thanksgiving to the Lord: “For he is good; his faithful love to Israel endures forever.” Then all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s house had been laid.

12 But many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads, who had seen the first temple, wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple but many others shouted joyfully.  13 The people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shouting from that of the weeping, because the people were shouting so loudly. And the sound was heard far away.

The hearts of many of the people are so moved by adoration and excitement at a simple foundation being laid that they shout out their praise to the Lord.  But there are others. There are those who only see the shadows of what used to be and are too haunted by what has been lost to rejoice. They wail. They weep.  They miss what the Lord is doing - the absolute miracle of what is happening in front of them - because they can’t let go of the picture of what used to stand in the place where the rebuilding is happening.  

This choice has been presented to me just a few days ago.  The destruction that happens in our lives is hard. It is wrong; this is not how life was meant to be.  And please hear me - we should grieve the things that cause us grief. To pretend the loss hasn't’ happened is as foolish as ignoring a gaping wound because we wish we weren’t injured.  We are just going to end up with a festering, infected wound in that place. Please grieve what you’ve lost. But don’t be blinded by your grief. God is rebuilding in your life. It may be so small today - just a foundation of what used to stand in that place.  But we get to choose. We can camp out in the grief of the memory of what used to be, or we can resolve to rejoice in the work God is doing today.

Could I be so bold as to remind you that God is Lord over the places laid bare in our lives?  No matter the tragedy, no matter the betrayal, no matter the devastation, He is God. And He is a good, faithful, patient God.  He will begin again in that place.  And though what He will build there may not be the same as what used to stand in that place, His hands labor to bulid it for you out of a heart that is only, ever, always good.  

Even as the shadows of what used to be loom in our minds, would you resolve with me to rejoice in the small things that are coming up in that place?  Zechariah 4:8-10 says this: “After that, the Word of God came to me: ‘Zerubbabel started rebuilding this temple and he will complete it.  That will be your confirmation that God-of-the-Angel-Armies sent me to you. Does anyone dare despise this day of small beginnings?  They’ll change their tune when they see Zerubbabel setting the last stone in place!” (MSG)

Do you know who Zerubbabel was?  He’s the man the Lord sent to oversee the completion of the temple on the very foundation they sacrificed on in Ezra 3 (see Ezra 5:1).  We must not despise the days of small beginnings. Our God is one who finishes what He starts. But we must allow Him to begin. We must acknowledge that every finished product had a foundation, a first stone laid, a blueprint drawn up before the work could even begin.  

And it’s so appropriate that the Lord is speaking this to us into our hearts Advent.  Is there any other time that better teaches us the beauty and wonder that can be wrapped up in the smallest things?  The voice who made the heavens and earth were found in a baby’s cry. The feet that through eternity were propped up on the earth as a footstool attached themselves to tiny, chubby, stumbling legs learning to walk.  Our God is one who places infinite value on process, on pausing, on patience and pace. These beautiful lyrics from “Seasons” by Hillsong perfectly illustrate this truth:

“I can see the promise

I can see the future

You’re the God of seasons

And I’m just in the winter.

If all I know of harvest

Is that it’s worth my patience

Then if You’re not done working

God I’m not done waiting.

You can see my promise

Even in the winter

Cause you’re the God of greatness,

Even in a manger.  

For all I know of seasons

Is that You take Your time.

You could have saved us in a second

Instead, you sent a child.

Like a seed You were sown

For the sake of us all

From Bethlehem’s soil

Grew Calvary’s sequoia.”

Oh, friend.  It isn’t easy.  These are not the silly, light, sappy, empty, happy, falsified facets of the gospel.  This is the real, deep truth that God is good, even in the empty spaces in our lives. May He give us each the grace to watch, to wait, and to choose to rejoice in even the small beginnings of His great restoration in the places in our lives that have felt destroyed.  

Anne Mullins