God’s door is open. He knows the whole story. His heart is toward us. He wants to restore us. Are we ready?
The prayer of Ezra (Ezra 9:5-15) plumbs the depths of shame and humiliation as he views the ragged landscape of the nation’s “iniquities [that] have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt…grown up to the heavens” (v 6). While he looks within, he can’t look up. In verse 7, he looks back and recounts the long history of Israel’s guilt, from patriarchs to kings, from people to priests. It is this factor, and this alone, that resulted in their being “delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to humiliation.” But in verse 8, he looks around. The sun breaks through the leaden clouds and illumines the heights of God’s forgiving grace. “And now for a little while grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage.” Ezra lists four practical evidences of that grace, two as present possessions and two as spiritual desires. First, “a remnant to escape.” Of the relatively small number of Israelites in the land, each one was a miracle, allowed to return because God had worked in the hearts of successive Gentile kings. Then He gave them a peg in the holy place. Today we might say, “You’ve given us a place to hang our hat,” a sense that we once again can feel at home in God’s presence. So the people were back, and the place was restored. But now they needed two more gifts of grace: enlightened eyes and true revival. It would only come as it ever does, through God’s Word. “The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes” (Ps 19:8). But we must also cooperate with His mercy to be revived, repaired, and rebuilt (Ezra 9:9). And the first step is the toughest.