Books are my favorite, the actual print and paper ones that smell new or like the shop where they were purchased. I’ve resigned myself to ebooks recently, however, in large part because I can read them on my phone whenever I have a minute without remembering to bring along reading material. I don’t love it, but it’s more practical in this season. I have become more selective about what I buy these days, and one book above all others takes precedence, even though I’ve read it from cover to cover many times.
“In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.”
John 1:1, 4 NLT
“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.
It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.
God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17 NLT
“Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative.
No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.”
2 Peter 1:20-21 NLT
Tucked into a long list of sons who returned to Jerusalem from Babylon to rebuild, we find “Shallum son of Hallohesh and his daughters repairing the next section. Shallum was the leader of the other half of the district of Jerusalem.”(Nehemiah 3:12) For this leader to work alongside daughters means either he had no living sons or his sons chose to remain in Babylon. After all, when Israel, then Judah were taken by Nebuchadnezzar, the captives were told to settle down in their new land.
“Jeremiah wrote a letter from Jerusalem to the elders, priests, prophets, and all the people who had been exiled to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar.
This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem:
“Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away!
And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”
This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years.
But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again.
For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord.
“I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes.
I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.””
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7, 10-14 NLT
“They left in obedience but the outlying lands were not safer and more comfortable than what they left behind. They believed a promise from the Lord and acted on it but it took immense courage and backbreaking work. The journey alone. The rebuilding. The sabotage and derision.
But we must not forget that what to us is a dramatic narrative was to those experiencing it days of brutally hard work, high tension, genuine fear, insecurity, rising faith, dirt and grime.”
Read the Bible: Genesis 15, Matthew 14, Nehemiah 4, and Acts 14
Not everyone returned. Some had become comfortable. Their lives, their homes were in Babylon. They were settled in like the Lord commanded. Seventy years is a long time. Some were too old to make the journey. Others were born in Babylon and like those born in the United States to immigrant families, gained citizenship at birth. Babylon was their homeland. Even with God’s promise to bring them out, many refused to move. Lot’s future sons-in-law were no different when the angel of the Lord gave Lot the opportunity to warn them of coming destruction. They thought he was joking.
“Meanwhile, the angels questioned Lot. “Do you have any other relatives here in the city?” they asked. “Get them out of this place—your sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else. For we are about to destroy this city completely. The outcry against this place is so great it has reached the Lord, and he has sent us to destroy it.”
So Lot rushed out to tell his daughters’ fiancés, “Quick, get out of the city! The Lord is about to destroy it.” But the young men thought he was only joking.
At dawn the next morning the angels became insistent. “Hurry,” they said to Lot. “Take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Get out right now, or you will be swept away in the destruction of the city!”
When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety outside the city, for the Lord was merciful.
When they were safely out of the city, one of the angels ordered, “Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!””
Genesis 19:12-17 NLT
Do you ever pause to consider what thought processes lead to decisions for those without Christ, those who do not take God at His Word? There seems to be no limit to the options available to those who choose their own way. What do you do when there is no social or emotional precedent? If there is no absolute truth, what does it really matter? Whose standards win out, and what if you follow one path only to later learn that others were available to you of which you were unaware?
Consider the returned exiles, including the daughters of Shallum rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem with their father. They were under constant threat of attack. We don’t know their names or their thoughts, but we see their obedience and scripture records that the wall was completed in only fifty-two days under the leadership of governor Nehemiah, cupbearer to the king.
“So on October 2 the wall was finished—just fifty-two days after we had begun.
When our enemies and the surrounding nations heard about it, they were frightened and humiliated.
They realized this work had been done with the help of our God.”
Nehemiah 6:15-16 NLT
Stories like theirs are inserted into scripture with divine purpose. These numberless, nameless daughters who worked faithfully beside their father, under his authority, get a shout out to encourage us still today. Chapters of the Bible that read like a roll call can be difficult, but hidden beneath the list of names which we are often tempted to skim through at best or skip altogether, is a story of the faithfulness of God and faithful obedience to God.
We don’t know what this family and others left behind in Babylon. We can’t see what they faced during their journey to the out lands or through the fifty-two days of building the wall. We have no idea what life in Jerusalem was like for them after this account. We can only imagine, but we do see the promised Messiah come, descended through Israel, son of David, son of God dedicated in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. They lived out their days in anonymity, but because of their obedience, their story is included in God’s Holy Word.
Some stories are harder to tell than others. Some you’re still in the middle of and even you don’t know the ending. That’s when it’s good to know the Author personally.
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
Hebrews 12:1-3 NASB1995
Remember, God is not a God of disorder but of peace. (I Corinthians 14:33)
“Then Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me.
Blessed are those who believe without seeing me.””
John 20:29 NLT
“You love him even though you have never seen him.
Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.
The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.”
1 Peter 1:8-9 NLT
And as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, we don’t even need to be known for our stories to matter. For we walk by faith, not by sight. (II Corinthians 5:7) Our lives lived in simple obedience to God as revealed in His Word is part of the greatest story ever told, until “at last, (we are) beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” (CS Lewis, The Last Battle, final paragraph of the final book in The Chronicles of Narnia, copyright 1956, Harper Collins)
“The only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves.
Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you.
Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you.
This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God.
It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.
We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ.
“It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own.
Our qualification comes from God.
He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant.
This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit.
The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.”
2 Corinthians 3:2-6 NLT
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