Ezra 6

“Then King Darius issued a decree, and a search was made in the archives, where the treasures were stored in Babylon. And at Achmetha, in the palace that is in the province of Media, a scroll was found, and in it a record was written thus: In the first year of King Cyrus, King Cyrus issued a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem: ‘Let the house be rebuilt, the place where they offered sacrifices; and let the foundations of it be firmly laid, its height sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits, with three rows of heavy stones and one row of new timber.’” Ezra 6:1-4a (NKJV)

As a high school senior, I was nominated to the United States Air Force Academy.  My father, being an Air Force Lt. Colonel, was very proud of me.  In fact, it had been my dream to fly fighter jets.  But there was one problem: My eyesight was way below the vision requirements for entrance into the Academy.  Still, I went forth with the procedures and interviews all the way up to the medical physical.  I had asked my eye doctor to write me a “dummy” prescription, hoping to slip past the exam, but I wasn’t counting on the Air Force doctors.  They used special drops to dilate my eyes.  When I walked out of the eye exam that day, I knew I had failed the physical, but I still had some youthful hope, some naïve notion that I would magically be allowed into the institution. Thus began my waiting for the official Air Force Academy decision.  

It can be challenging to await the arrival of an important letter.  The Jews must have felt some apprehension about the reply Tattenai would receive to the letter he dispatched to the powerful Persian King Darius.  Would Darius bother to search the old dusty records and back up the claim of the Jews that Cyrus had commanded them to build their Temple in Jerusalem?

Some of the Jews may have been dreading the answer from Darius; perhaps, ALL of them feared that the king would force them to stop building.  Are you afraid of something that might happen in the future?  You might be anxious about an upcoming medical procedure, impending unemployment, or family problems – the list is as vast as our imaginations!  God may surprise us and turn a terrifying prospect into a blessing.  Whatever happens, whether the future is better or worse than we imagined, it will be overseen by our loving, ever-present, all-knowing Heavenly Father.  The God who cared for His anxious people awaiting the reply of King Darius watches over us and plans the path ahead. (Proverbs 3:5-7)

By the way, I did not pass my Air Force Academy physical: eyesight.  I dejectedly accepted a track scholarship at a state college in Arkansas.  One night two years later, on our way home from a track meet at the University of Indiana, I heard the gospel and decided to follow Jesus.  Sometimes, what we think is bad news turns out to be the best news ever.