Devotion - Wednesday, November 20

Ezra, Nehemiah - these are far from household names, even for regular church attendees.  A Sunday School Teacher was asking me for help in putting together a study about Ezra.  "I always thought Ezra was a woman." was one of the discoveries of the research.

Ezra and Nehemiah were present when Israel returns from captivity.  They had been in a strange land, separated from their way of life and their religious practices for 3, maybe 4 generations.  Much of how God had instructed them to live their lives had been forbidden, forsaken, and forgotten.

In Nehemiah 7, Ezra sits among the people from morning till noon and reads from the books of The Law.  The people hear the words eagerly and set about righting their lives to match the words they hear.  

We have not been carried off to a foreign land.  Our places of worship have not been destroyed by an invading army.  But as I read Nehemiah I wonder about the possibility of our having forgotten or forsaken God's instructions.  The push in the last century to adhere to orthodoxy in thought and speech seems (to me) to have overshadowed God's insistence that our faith be expressed in our compassion and care for others.  Have we forgotten or forsaken the instructions on be blessed so that we might be a blessing?

There are a lot of weird names and unfamiliar practices in the book of Nehemiah.  But rather than get weighed down in the details and get lost in the search for who and what - i take from there a reminder that we must always take a look at our practices and ask how faithfully we are following the Word of God.  Not just the words we like, or the instructions we find easy.  But the Word.