““This was their answer: ‘We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the Temple that was built here many years ago by a great king of Israel. But because our ancestors angered the God of heaven, he abandoned them to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who destroyed this Temple and exiled the people to Babylonia.”
Ezra 5:11-12 NLT
When things do not appear to go our way, we tend to allow panic to set in. We can start to puff our chests and rally against our enemies in the hopes that they will not call our bluff. This seemed an impossible situation. The servants of the new king were demanding answers of these Jewish exiles. Yet, they had their proper channels to go through. The response from the Jewish leaders is something we can learn from. Though they did acknowledge their kingly right to build the temple, they gave their full backstory with it. They humbled themselves and told the truth to the officials about how they were cleaning up the messes of the generation before them. Instead of escalating the problem, it escalated a solution as it put stress in the proper places. They admitted the mess they were in is their fault but also that they were just doing their jobs. This placed the responsibility to solve the issue back with the officials who started it. Godly humbleness works against adversity.
JOSH McGARY. COM 