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Comfortable Captivity
The book of Ezra begins with the people of Israel still in captivity in Babylon. The first few chapters tell how the people of Israel were called to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. Out of the entire nation of Israel, only 50,000 people responded to the call, but they only took 10,000 pack animals with them. That's one animal for every 5 people! Clearly, they did not have a lot of belongings, but what about the ones who didn’t go? We can’t be certain, but it’s possible they were living relatively comfortable lives there in Babylon. Perhaps they had grown accustomed to their lives of captivity because things weren’t that bad for them. If that’s the case, then their comfortable captivity was keeping them from the full blessing God had intended for them. We, too, can become so comfortable in our current circumstances that we may not even recognize we are in captivity. Yet, anything that would keep us from fulfilling the purpose God has placed on our life holds us captive. When God calls, we must be willing to go. We must be willing to shake things up and leave our lives of comfortable captivity behind to follow the call of God.
The book of Ezra begins with the people of Israel still in captivity in Babylon. The first few chapters tell how the people of Israel were called to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. Out of the entire nation of Israel, only 50,000 people responded to the call, but they only took 10,000 pack animals with them. That's one animal for every 5 people! Clearly, they did not have a lot of belongings, but what about the ones who didn’t go? We can’t be certain, but it’s possible they were living relatively comfortable lives there in Babylon. Perhaps they had grown accustomed to their lives of captivity because things weren’t that bad for them. If that’s the case, then their comfortable captivity was keeping them from the full blessing God had intended for them. We, too, can become so comfortable in our current circumstances that we may not even recognize we are in captivity. Yet, anything that would keep us from fulfilling the purpose God has placed on our life holds us captive. When God calls, we must be willing to go. We must be willing to shake things up and leave our lives of comfortable captivity behind to follow the call of God.