Lately I’ve felt like I’m facing mountains. In my job. In motherhood. In ministry. In college we had this saying, “The way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.” But what about the days that you take one step forward, two steps back? Stuff keeps building and becomes overwhelming.
Recently in church God reminded me of a huge project in the Old Testament that seemed impossible to the people working on it.
After years of watching them worship false gods, God allowed his people to be conquered and exiled to Babylon. Eventually, their captors allowed them to return to their land, but when they got there, they found destruction and desolation. Most importantly, the city walls of Jerusalem were broken down and the temple of God was completely destroyed.
Zerubbabel (Zer-oob-baw-BEL) was one of the main leaders in charge of rebuilding the temple. It was a huge pile of rubble that needed to be rebuilt, brick by brick. You can read the story in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
The job overwhelmed the people. Rebuilding the once-beautiful temple wasn’t an easy task. Then on top of that challenge, some of their enemies started demoralizing them. They wrecked havoc and the Jews eventually gave up the work.
With a show of strength, they forced the Jews to stop building. So the work on the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stopped, and it remained at a standstill until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia. Ezra 4:23-24
Then, Ezra records,
“At that time the prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesied to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem. They prophesied in the name of the God of Israel who was over them.”
So check out how God’s word fits together. If we take a break from the historical book of Ezra and head over to the books of prophecy, Haggai and Zechariah, we can read behind the scenes. What did these prophets have to say?
Among other things, Zechariah said this:
“This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. Nothing, not even a mighty mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel’s way; it will become a level plain before him! And when Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the Temple in place, the people will shout: ‘May God bless it! May God bless it!’”
Zechariah 4:6-7
Immediately after the prophets relayed God’s message to Zerubbabel, the people began building again. God’s truth empowered them to keep going even when their job seemed impossible.
The truth is that God gives us the strength to do what he calls us to do. There’s a popular religious saying, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” Catchy, but unfortunately not Biblical.
Over and over again in the Bible we read about people who couldn’t face their enemies on their own. The job was too big. The enemy too strong. God lets us get into these places to give us the chance to turn to him for help.
We often face more than we can handle. So we cry out to God. And God says,
“I am the Lord, the God of all the peoples of the world. Is anything too hard for me?”
Jeremiah 32:27
Like Zechariah told Zerubbabel, it’s not by our force or strength, but by the power of God’s Spirit that the work gets done. Even those mountains that seem impossible to climb. God blesses us when we depend on him.