reBuild: Why Does God Take Us The Long Way?
Rebuilding takes more time and effort than any of us want. God could choose to make it all better in a second…but He chooses not to.
Many of you know that I work for a Christian disaster relief network in my day job. We help people rebuild their homes and their lives after disasters, intentionally sharing Jesus’ love along the way. Let me tell you, it’s not easy or pretty work. Remember the winter storms that buried Texas under layers of ice and snow earlier this year? Cold temps overloaded our power grid, froze and burst exposed pipes which then flooded homes that were already dark and cold. The whole thing created a large and dangerous mess. We’re four months removed from that chaos, yet more than 200 families still need help to rebuild their homes. No one that I know expected this kind of devastation, and plenty of folks share my surprise that the clean-up takes this long. But that’s what happens when the water heater in the attic freezes and then explodes, sending water cascading down every wall, warping every door, drenching carpet, and sprouting mold. Time for a massive gut and rebuild, and that takes a lot of time and effort.
The same holds true when our lives crumble around us, whether the sudden freeze of a relationship or a heated explosion takes the whole thing down. When the walls of security shatter, tears flood our pillows at night, trust corrodes, or mental health warps under the weight, we need a massive rebuild from the ground up. Not pretty. Not quick. And certainly not easy.
Tackling a rebuild starts with a big gulp of courage. The sheer size of the task tempts us to walk away, leave the mess for someone else. But home is home, and so we swallow hard and lean in. Our first steps into the rubble offer unsure footing and the threat of a dangerous fall. It’s risky. We soon see that rebuilding lives and dreams requires more effort than we thought, takes longer than we want, follows a more jagged path than we hoped, and plays an ongoing game of two-steps-forward-one-step-back-then-fall-on-your-butt.
But we’ve gotta live real life in the here and now. Seasons of wading into the rubble and rebuilding must happen if we’re going to survive, let alone thrive for God’s purposes. God knows it. He does it in and through us. As the hammer flies and the new structure takes shape, we pray for a quick, efficient, and orderly finish. After everything we’ve been through, can’t THIS, at least, come easy?
Sadly, the Bible doesn’t describe rebuilding as quick, efficient, or necessarily orderly. No one could use those words to describe the rebuild God’s people undertake as they pick up the ruins of their lives after 70 years in Babylonian exile.
GOD’S PEOPLE IN REBUILD MODE
My dive into the post-exile biblical writings weaves through several books in the Old Testament. Talk about a convoluted, long, and messy road. These chapters in Israel’s story fragment across at least three narratives and four minor prophets. To understand what rebuilding looks like for God’s people from God’s perspective means unwinding and harmonizing timelines with the messages God sends through His prophets. Parsing out the passages, here’s my outline beginning where the Babylonian exile ends.
539 BC: King Cyrus of Persia issues a decree to let God’s people return to Judea/the Promised Land and rebuild the Temple (Ezra 1). Later that year, the first wave of exiles return and rebuild the altar on the Temple Mount, resuming daily sacrifices to God
538 BC: Governor Zerubbabel begins rebuilding the Temple in earnest
529 BC: Cambyses II becomes King of Persia. Representatives from the nations around Israel complain about the Temple rebuilding project, and the king orders Zerubbabel to stop
522 BC: Darius II becomes King of Persia
521 BC: Haggai and Zechariah prophesy
520 BC: Zerubbabel restarts the Temple rebuilding project
516 BC: Zerubbabel completes the Temple. God’s people hold a dedication ceremony and celebrate Passover
485 BC: Xerxes becomes King of Persia. Events of the book of Esther occur during Xerxes’ reign between 482 BC and 473 BC
464 BC: Artaxerxes I becomes King of Persia
458 BC: Ezra travels to Judea with the second wave of exiles returning from Babylon/Persia
450 BC: Joel prophesies
445 BC: Nehemiah travels to Jerusalem to rebuild the city wall, completing the project in 52 days
433 BC: Nehemiah returns to King Artaxerxes but then comes back to Jerusalem about twelve years later. Malachi’s prophecies likely fall during Nehemiah’s time away
God’s prophets pop in and out all over the place. They instruct, correct, encourage, exhort, even scold at times. I’m fascinated by what God chooses to say at each stage of the long rebuilding process. His words probably have something to say when we’re in rebuild mode, too. I’ll spend tons of time on these messages later. For now, we can learn a few things from the bigger picture.
A LONG TIME COMING
Looking back to when it all fell apart for Israel, Babylon’s armies took 18 months to batter Jerusalem’s walls down. Then, they burned the Temple to the ground in just a few days. By comparison, God’s people spend over one hundred years putting things back together again — a very long one hundred years. But isn’t that the way things go? What falls apart in a moment takes much, much longer to put back together again.
This fact lives right in front of my eyes at work. We serve people who had homes one minute, and then a storm hits, and *poof* it’s all gone. Seeing the debris of someone’s life piled up as broken sticks and fabric shreds by the side of the road will break your heart. Helping these people rebuild a place they can call home can take months if not years - and that’s just walls and a roof. The emotional, mental, and spiritual healing from such devastation takes much longer than anyone would like.
The concept applies to all kinds of rebuilding. Rebuilding finances means lots of hard work and discipline. Rebuilding a career doesn’t come easily. Rebuilding dreams gets harder still when you have to get over the fear of losing so much again. Rebuilding trust doesn’t happen overnight if at all. The collapse of a person's life can happen as fast as a hurricane barreling through. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. And in those times when God has been rebuilding me, I wouldn’t call it a smooth or straight-line process. I certainly would prefer for Him to just snap His fingers and make everything okay. I know He CAN do it that way if He wants. But He hasn’t yet.
There must be something in the long process that’s good for us if He chooses to do things the long way.
A quick glance at another point in the history of God’s people confirms this. In the book of Exodus, when God sets the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt, does He take them by the short and straight route to the Promised Land? Nope. They’ve got enemies they’re not prepared for in that direction, and God’s got plenty of other things to show them along the journey, too — little tidbits like parting the Red Sea, showering manna from heaven, bringing water from a rock, and “marrying” them through the Mosaic covenant, just to name a few. If I had walked among these newly freed Israelites, I’m sure I would have chosen the direct route in my ignorance. But then I would have missed out on so much of God and probably taken the Promised Land for granted.
Cue the closing lines to “Painting Pictures of Egypt” by Sara Groves:
If it comes too quick, I may not recognize it. // Is that the reason behind all this time in sand? // If it comes too quick, I may not appreciate it. // Is that the reason behind all this time in sand?
Yeah. That.
“ If God just hands us the blessings of the Promised Land on a silver plate with little to no effort on our part, we might not recognize or appreciate them.”
In his book “This Is Our Time: Everyday Myths in Light of the Gospel”, author Trevin Wax says our instant gratification society leaves us prone to devalue tons of stuff. When pretty much whatever we want auto-magically appears on our doorstep within hours with just a few button clicks, then throwing something away or neglecting it becomes no big deal. That goes for a whole range of things from our favorite foods to phones, from clothes to cars. But when we invest a lot of time, energy, and hard-earned money, we tend to value those things more highly, take care of them, and treasure them.
Translate this to our lives with God. If He just hands us the blessings of the Promised Land on a silver plate with little to no effort on our part, we might not recognize or appreciate them. Taking God for granted is precisely what gets God’s people into so much trouble and lands them in the Babylonian exile in the first place. As they return to rebuild what’s left of home, He doesn’t make things easy on them or allow them to pick things up right where they left off. If He did, they might end up back in the same trouble where they started. We all know He could fix it with a word or a nose-wiggle, but He chooses not to. He chooses the hundred-year road for them.
He’s likely to choose the long way for us, too. If He didn't, we’d likely pick up the same ol’ stuff that let us down in the first place instead of the new life God wants to build. And we probably wouldn’t appreciate what He gives us if it comes as easily as ordering off of Amazon.com.
Yeah. That.
HE FINISHES WHAT HE STARTS
Here’s another thing I notice in Israel’s post-exile timeline: kings and kingdoms rise and fall but God never wavers from finishing what He starts. We see stretches of years with the project on pause, when any given Israelite probably doubts the Temple will ever get done. Those days roll into other seasons where things jerk forward at a breakneck pace. Sounds like the worst roller coaster ride ever. With the benefit of hindsight, we see God’s steady hand leading His people through, but I’m willing to bet more than a few folks lost heart along the way.
The prophet Malachi speaks directly to this in the opening verses of his oracle. Scholars place his words in the time after Nehemiah rebuilds Jerusalem’s wall but before his story closes, probably during Nehemiah’s 12-year-stint back in Persia near the end. Right off the bat, Malachi gives voice to the people’s hearts - “How have You loved us, God?” (Malachi 1:2) That’s a big fat clue to how rough this rebuilding process has been even as they now stand in the shadow of a rebuilt Temple within the safety of Jerusalem’s rebuilt city walls. It’s easy to guess why. God’s promises still lie in the rubble at their feet. His people remain slaves of Persia. Walls and temples are great and all, but they’re still waiting for God to rebuild a big part of their lives as God’s people — their freedom.
That phase of the project won’t even begin until Jesus comes on the scene another four hundred years later.
I think that’s one reason why the four prophets of this time have so much to say about the coming Messiah, Zechariah in particular. Mr. Z spends talks more about the coming King than anything else, and he ministers way back when the people set the foundations for a rebuilt Temple. It’s like God wants His people to know from the outset that whatever structures get rebuilt, they will only shadow the true rebuilding of hearts and lives when Jesus comes. When it’s all done and Malachi prophesies, the reality of their need for a Messiah still hasn’t sunk in.
They rebuild with stones as hard as their sinful hearts, but God wants to rebuild them with hearts of flesh.
Instead of a Temple made with rock, God points forward to a day when He will rebuild His Temple using the living stones of His people (1 Peter 2:4-5). Only in Christ will they find freedom from oppression far worse than Persia - the oppression of sin. Only then will they find the freedom they truly need. For the next four hundred years, the Israelites will suffer under the rule of harsh kings and emperors. But Jesus will one day come to truly rebuild His own and set us free forever in the ways that ultimately matter.
That rebuilding project still doesn’t feel complete, does it? It’s not, and it won’t be until we see Jesus face to face. God only builds perfect things, and nothing is perfect on this side of heaven until Jesus comes back. Which, I believe, is a major point God makes through these prophets. What we rebuild in this life will always be temporary and disappoint us in the end whether it's homes or dreams or careers or bank accounts or families. All of it falls in the face of storms of our own making or storms that life just throws in our general direction. We can’t place our hopes here, not even in God’s Temple or His holy city before He makes all things new at the end of time. Only what gets built on the foundation of Jesus will ultimately last.
Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” (Luke 6:47-49)
So I’m adjusting my expectations for what rebuilding a life might look like. I remember what it’s like to watch the walls of my heart and my dreams crumble and burn, and I know many of you do, too. I’m grateful to live relatively safe and secure these days. But if I believe for even a second that this earthly home cannot collapse again around me, then I’m only deluding myself. I’ll fall prey to spiritual apathy, to questioning God’s love for me, to disappointment and despair when it all falls down, which is not what rebuilding is all about.
Instead, God says to my heart and yours that what we rebuild with Him in the here and now can point us to the greater restoration yet to come in Jesus. And oh, how we long for that day!