Movement Without Momentum

In the last chapter of Judah’s chronicle, their story spirals toward a tragic end. Three feeble kings fall to Egypt, then Babylon, then exile.

All of David and Solomon’s momentum rolls to a total stop.

Until, out of the void—when Israel least expected it—God breathed hope into their story again.

“In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm …”

After seventy years without motion, God moved the heart of an emperor to work on behalf of his people. Though the silver was scattered and Jerusalem lay in rubble, God reversed it all with one breath on Cyrus’s soul.

The God who formed the heavens and the earth from nothing doesn’t need human momentum to move in power. He doesn’t care whether the trend is turning his way. 

With a single breath of inspiration, the Creator reverses, reforms, and revives a nation lying in ruins. 

In a moment, God descends on a soul dead-set on Damascus.

In a moment, God satisfies a famished family with overflowing oil.

In a moment, God pours heaven’s resources on a people without hope.

Is life trending down and toward the darkness? The good news is that God doesn’t need things to move in the right direction before he brings a sudden reversal of grace.

The next chapters of your life are not inevitable projections of your present circumstances. They flow from the Author who loves to foreshadow the end with purposeful plot twists on every page.

Every faithless generation believes that their era is the exception. Though God consistently contradicts human expectations with unexpected rains of renewal, “in this day and age,” they say, conditions have become far too dry for a downpour.

But God doesn’t watch our weather reports. He doesn’t read the papers. He doesn’t mind the rumors. Imagine what Persia was predicting the day before Cyrus’s decree!

Unbind your heart from the fleeting trends. 

Keep your finger on the pulse of God’s unchanging promises.