What do you expect God to do for you?
Do you think “I’ve obeyed Him, so I know He will give me _________”?
Examples: You work hard in school, so you expect God to bless you with money. You are pure with the opposite sex, so you expect a rock-star spouse. You give your talents to God, so you expect fame and fortune. We expect God to reward us. Sometimes He proves our expectations wrong.
After Israel had been captive in Babylon for 70 years, God raised up King Cyrus to send them home. Cyrus sent 50,000 Hebrews back to Jerusalem to rebuild Solomon’s temple. Two years later, they laid the foundation and celebrated. Finally, Israel had a home and a temple.
“Then all the people gave a GREAT SHOUT of praise to the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s house had been laid. But many of the older priests, Levites, and family leaders who had seen the first temple wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this house…. The people could not distinguish the shouting from the weeping because the people were shouting so loudly. And the sound was heard far away” Ezra 3:11-13.
Israel was home! So who was disappointed? The ones who remembered the original temple. Why? Because Solomon’s Temple was better. The new temple was a disappointment to anyone roughly 80 years old and up—because they knew what had been lost.
But the old folks were wrong and had to release their expectations. The prophet Zechariah said as much:
“For who has despised the day of small things?” Zechariah 4:10.
That means, “how dare you complain about what God has done?”
We must obey God and be grateful when He rewards our obedience in SMALL ways. We are told to “rejoice always,” and “in everything give thanks.” Do not put expectations on God; they will rob you of the pleasure of the small things.
God DOES reward obedience. But sometimes a small reward benefits you more than a big one because it makes you grow as you learn to love God and be thankful whether He sends big rewards, small rewards, or even no rewards this side of Heaven.
ΑΩ
*The wall at the center of the above picture is commonly known as the “Western Wall” or the “Wailing Wall.” It is the last remaining outer wall of the ancient Jewish temple and thus, the most important religious site for Jewish people in the entire world. The Western Wall is one of the outer walls of the Temple Mount, its lowest stones dating back to Herod’s modifications to Zerubbabel’s Temple (temple built during the time of Ezra described above) which was later re-named Herod’s Temple. In 516 B.C., it was the new temple behind this wall that excited Ezra’s younger generations, while disappointing the oldest who could see that the new temple was not as grand as Solomon’s Temple had been.
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