Waze for the Last Daze, week II -- 22 August 2021

Remember the daze when you had to pull over and ask for directions? WAZE is most beneficial when you are going somewhere you’ve never been. As long as you have battery (or power) and you entered the correct address, you can just sit back and trust WAZE, even if she changes her mind or the directions on you.

In 536 BC, the temple in Jerusalem was rebuilt, the relationship with God was reestablished,.  The Israelites had a new lease on life but there was no resulting power, only a temple, a worship facility that was having no apparent impact on the people of God or their world. Their rebirth was seen in their return, but their recovery was unseen and abundantly manifest in the rubbled mess called “Jerusalem”, the city of peace.

This is the picture of many believers. They are saved, they have established a connection to God, but have no resulting power that brings real life. No walls. A city with no walls isn’t a city.

As a people, the Israelites illustrate the incompleteness that often besets and bewilders reborn believers. The Jerusalemites, frustrated by their inability to restore their capital city, depict believers who seem unable to regain control of life issues mangled in their pasts. Like those in ancient Judea, so often with us: recovery was so long in coming, the conviction grows that it is never going to happen.

But, then something happens...someone is dispatched by God to come and lead the effort to rebuild God’s way.