Read:
After decades in exile, some of God’s people came home to a city in ruins. Under Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son and Jeconiah’s grandson, they laid the foundation for a new Temple.
The younger crowd shouted for joy. The older leaders, who remembered the first Temple, wept out loud. This one wasn’t what it used to be. The sounds of cheering and crying mixed together until no one could tell them apart.
Then God spoke to Zerubbabel through the prophet Haggai: “I will make you like a signet ring on my finger…for I have chosen you” (Haggai 2:23, NLT). A signet ring was a king’s seal of authority. Back in Jeremiah 22:24, God had said he would pull Jeconiah off like a signet ring. Two generations later, he was putting the ring back on.
Something in your life may never be what it was. It might be a relationship, a season, or your health, and you might still be grieving the old version. God didn’t wait for things to go back to how they were. He met his people in the rebuild, and he wants to meet you there too.
Pray: God, I miss what used to be. Meet me here, in what’s left and in what’s being rebuilt. Amen.