God Provides

God provides in many different ways. I have been reading Ezra as part of my daily devotional time.  Ezra leads the people of Israel out of Babylonian captivity back to Israel.  A big piece of this transition is the rebuilding of the temple and the reinstituting of the religious ceremonies including sacrifices.  Cyrus King of Persia gave a significant gift to Ezra for this purpose.  In fact, he gives them 25 tons of silver and almost four tons of Gold.  In today’s value that is over $250 million.  God provided the resources necessary to reestablish His covenant with His people.  

In Ezra 8 we find that the next problem was finding the right people to take the money and temple utensils (the same ones that led to the handwriting on the wall) to Jerusalem.  Because of the holy utensils being part of the cargo, Ezra found priests to be in charge of the shipment.  Ezra weighed out for them all the silver and gold and gave them responsibility over it.  Now that it was in the hands of the right people, the journey could begin.

Put yourself back to a time before the Romans built roads.  They journeyed 900 miles down dirt roads and across rivers with extremely heavy cargo and that was not the most difficult part.  The journey took them through unsafe territories.  There were enemies of the Jews as well as thieves.  It took them four months to reach Jerusalem.  They recounted everything and placed it in the hands of Meremoth the priest in charge of the rebuilding of the temple.  God provided.  They made it to Jerusalem without incident.  “The hand of our God was on us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from ambushes by the way.” (Ezra 8:31)

When God uses us to work His plan he always provides.  He will provide the resources.  He will provide the right people to go on the journey with you.  And he will provide the safety needed to accomplish His purpose. When God calls, he always provides.