Ezra Chapter 4
Expect Obstacles
As Israel was hard at work to build the Temple of the Lord, which God instructed them to do, their adversaries came to stop the work. Their enemies did everything they could to discourage and frighten the people so to get them to stop working. They even wrote a letter to the King of Persia saying Israel must be stopped from building the wall and the Temple because eventually they would rebel against the king. So the King of Persia ordered the work to stop until further notice.
This greatly discouraged the Israelites. Obstacles are very frustrating when doing the work of the Lord. We can get locked in our minds that because we are doing God’s work, that it will be blessed and we’ll have no problems. But expect the problems! The devil will use any form of deception to cause obstacles. It may delay what God said he would do, but God is still in control. His timing is never late. It’s just may be later than our little minds expected. Keep trusting God. Don’t give up. Look at obstacles not as a form of defeat but as an opportunity to see God overcome the obstacle for his glory. I said expect obstacles, but then when they come, expect God to overcome the obstacle in his timing.
