On Faith The Rev. H. Murray Hohns

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Power of grace solves toughest tasks

Scripture tells us about a man named Zerubbabel. How would you like a name like that? Some of us in these islands have strange-sounding names, but none of our island names is quite like this fellow's. Zerubbabel was the governor of Judah when the Jewish people began to return from many years of exile in Babylon.

It was not a good time for Judah and its capital, Jerusalem. The farmland beyond the city walls had been long neglected and was overgrown with weeds. Only a few head of livestock grazed on the little pasture that still existed. The city walls that had offered protection were in total disarray, and the magnificent city gates had long since been used as firewood. The water system and supply were gone. No services existed. Nothing functioned as it once had. Anything of value had long been vandalized.

As discouraging as all that was, the centerpiece of the city, the Temple that King Solomon had erected years before during the height of Israel's success, had been destroyed, and any usable item from this majestic building had been hauled off. And, of course, there was no money or wealth in the community to tax or be donated. Tough times! Talk about bad economy! It's no fun to be in charge in days like these. But then Haggai, one of the local religious leaders, received word from God, who said, "From this day on, I will bless you."

Now, as a pastor, I know that words like these are easy to say, but so often the agony and hurt to be faced are so deep that one wonders if these words could be true. Does God really care about us? Do people, when they are down and out, get blessed? Or do things just go from bad to worse?

Zerubbabel felt that way. Along with everything else, he was chosen to rebuild the Temple of God, but there was no money, no skilled labor, no materials and no equipment. There was a lot of scorn and opposition. Even worse, back then people in charge who messed up building programs did not lose their jobs; no, they lost their lives.

One day Zerubbabel looked out at the foundations under way and the impossible task he faced, and in his dismay he heard the voice of God saying, "Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit. What are you, O mighty mountain, before Zerubbabel? You shall become level ground as he sets the capstone with shouts of 'grace.'"

Do you face a mountain too high to climb and to wide to circumvent? Is the path ahead too hard to navigate? The pain too hard, is it too great to bear? I have lived through days like those, days when I did not know what to do. I remember one day when I had borrowed all that I could borrow and still could not begin to make the payroll due that afternoon. In spite of all that I had done, it seemed like I was about to fail financially when I remembered the story of Zerubbabel, who lived so many years ago; so I did what he did. I looked at my checkbook and shouted "GRACE" at it and all it stood for, and then I watched as the Lord made that impossibly high mountain into level ground. It took some time, but when he was done it was done well; and then in 1987 I sold my business, and my wife and I moved to Honolulu. Shouting grace at problems is a wonderful way to get God involved in their solution.