One of the things we often miss when we are reading the Bible is how things we read about today would have felt in the peoples present circumstances. Because we know the end of the story we can sometimes minimise how those people felt at the time. I often think the people I meet in the scriptures where the boldest, smartest, fearless characters but I’ve realised that’s not necessarily the case.

As I was reading through Ezra I reached the part where the exiles have returned to Jerusalem and have come together to build the altar of the Lord. We do know that the people around them did not want this work to continue and I just love the next verse which tells us what they did in response.

Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the LORD, both the morning and evening sacrifices Ezra 3:3

“Despite their fears”

I just love that phrase because it sums up so much of my approach when it comes to following Jesus. Everytime I step into the Jesus story I have to push past my fear and into Gods promises. To think that throughout the Bible there are men and women who felt the same is both comforting, because feel the same, and challenging, because they pushed in and did it anyway.

What do we need to do today “despite our fears?”

Lets encourage one another today to push in