Stopped isn't Finished

📖 Ezra 4

    Well...yesterday everybody was worshiping, shouting, crying and celebrating the foundation. And Today somebody shows up and tries to shut the whole thing down. 

        And isn't that how it usually happens.

 But The first thing that got me was how the opposition showed up. They offered to help.

    We need to understand that not everything that looks like help belongs in what God has called us to build. And sometimes you don't really know someone's intentions until you tell them no. Because as soon as Zerubbabel told them they couldn't build with them, the “help” turned into discouragement. They got ugly. They made the people afraid. They frustrated their plans and they worked against them.

    And eventually the people stopped building.

That's the part that really hits me hard and breaks my heart. These are the same people who just returned home because God stirred their hearts. The same people who rebuilt the altar. The same people who worshiped in the rubble. The same people who shouted over the foundation. And now the hammer is laying on the ground and the work has stopped.

    Because sometimes you can know God called you to something and still get wore out and tired. You can Still get discouraged and scared. We can Still let people's words get louder than the thing God stirred inside of us.

I've been there done that a few times what about you?

    I've had things I knew God put in my heart, but the popposition came and suddenly I started questioning everything.

                      Did I hear God right?

       Am I really supposed to be doing this?

           Maybe this isn't worth fighting for.

Ezra 4 ends with something unfinished.

    But even though the work stopped the calling didn't disappear. God wasn't finished just because His people stopped.

 I needed that reminder today. Stopped isn't finished.

     A hard season doesn't erase what God said.

Discouragement doesn't get the final word in my life. Opposition isn't always a stop sign.

And if I've put the hammer down somewhere along the way, God knows exactly where I left it. He also knows how to stir my heart enough to pick it back up.

   So today I'm looking at the places where I've stopped building and asking myself Did God tell me to stop or did I just get discouraged. Because those are two very different things.

     And if He didn't tell me to stop I need to pick the hammer back up. And I want you to ask yourself the same question today. Have you dropped the hammer somewhere?

Return. Rebuild. Restore.

Love Pastor Mandy 

MandiesDandies / Ark of Hope