Rebuilding Life After Captivity: Embracing New Beginnings

Now, in the old Testament, there are five books of encouragement that were written to God's people to encourage them and to tell them what to do when they were finally released from 70 years of captivity in Babylon. These are called the post-exile books. And these post-captivity books are the ones we're gonna look at for the next couple of weeks. [00:08:02]

Expect to feel mixed emotions. Now, let me give you the background on this. When people were allowed to return to Jerusalem after 70 years of captivity in Babylon, they found that their homes and the city of Jerusalem and the Temple, their house of worship, were completely destroyed. Everything was in ruins. So the first thing they did was they started to rebuild the house of worship. [00:10:12]

Don't be surprised if you feel mixed emotions, and even conflicting emotions, as you reenter life after this pandemic. And as we begin public worship services, again, you know we're having to spread chairs out. We're having to wear masks. You know, things are different right now. We're easing into this, but you know, you can feel joy that we're finally back together. [00:12:34]

Extract the lessons that I learned in this past year of restrictions. As restrictions are eased and opportunities are open up around you, before you rush off and start a bunch of new things, here's what God wants you to do. He wants you to pause for a moment and he wants you to consider the lessons that you learned in the last year. [00:15:41]

Write down the lessons that you learned in the last year of the pandemic so you don't forget them. Write them down so you don't forget them, write them down so you can review them, write them down so you can share them with other generations. Don't let this last year be wasted. Okay, you went through all that pain. Make sure you take the time to glean some spiritual truths. [00:16:17]

Evaluate everything before resuming it. All right, this is gonna be really important for you to do, for your future. Evaluate everything, reevaluate everything you do before you automatically resume it. Don't just automatically say, well, I'm gonna go back and start doing everything I did before the pandemic. 'Cause there was some stuff you were doing before the pandemic. [00:20:18]

And there are things that God wants you to stop doing because they were harmful to you. So, as I said, God is giving you an amazing opportunity to reset your life, that's what this series is all about, and build a better life, a better you for the rest of your life. But that begins with evaluating and analyzing and examining what you were doing before the pandemic. [00:21:20]

Engage slowly, don't get in a hurry, go slow. Don't be in a rush to restart everything all at once just because you have the freedom to do it. Let me just tell you something you may not realize. You don't have the same energy level that you did before this pandemic. You say, how do you know that? Because you've been in a trauma for a year and trauma drains you. [00:26:02]

God wants you to trust him. You know, the people who are in a hurry to get everything to go back to the way they imagined it was in the past, the prophet Habakkuk had a word for them. And let me show you that verse. Habakkuk chapter two, verse three, God says this, "At the appointed time that I have decided everything I've planned will happen," okay? [00:29:14]

In God's sovereign plan, delays are always for our benefit. Write that down. In God's sovereign plan for your life delays are always for your benefit. So go slow. Pacing growth. Don't try, Rome isn't built in a day. Don't try to just flip a switch and say we're gonna go back to the way it was. Now, we've only covered four of these seven principles. [00:31:41]

Rely on God's spirit to give you the insight and the direction and the wisdom and the power to re-enter the world in a healthy way. How do you get that power? Well, it's real simple: from a daily connection with Jesus Christ. If you don't have that, you need to start a daily connection, a daily time with God. If you've never had any connection with Jesus Christ. [00:36:07]

So let me wrap it up real quickly with a review. First, God wants you to realize that having mixed emotions after all of the changes this past year is normal and it's natural and it's human and it is to be expected. So, be kind to yourself and be kind to everybody else. You're gonna have often conflict in emotions as you re-enter because so many things have changed. [00:33:41]