I Spy God!!!

There was a little old lady who was very spiritual. She would step out on her porch every day, raise her arms to the sky and say "Praise the Lord!"

But there was an atheist living next door. And after a month or so of her yelling, "Praise the Lord" he got tired of it. He shouted back, "There is no Lord."

But every morning, the lady kept saying “Praise the Lord!”

One snowy day, when the little old lady couldn’t get to the store, she went out on her porch, raised her hands up to the sky and said, "Help me Lord, I have no more money and no more food."

The next morning, she went outside, and there were three bags of food on the porch. She raises her hands and shouts "Praise the Lord!" The atheist jumps out from the bushes and says, "Hah! There is no Lord. I was the one who bought those groceries! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!"

The little old lady raised her arms to the sky and said, "Praise the Lord, you sent me groceries and you made the Devil pay for them!"

This little lady praises the Lord because she can see God’s hand of blessing on her life. I want you to be like that. My prayer is that you will see the hand of God behind every blessing. And in every situation.

Today in the book of Ezra, we’re going to see God at work in the lives of the Jewish people. And then we’re going to talk about how to notice His work in our lives.

We’re in Ezra chapter 1. The Jews have been prisoners in Babylon for 50 years. It seems like nothing is going right. It seems like everything is against them.

But in Ezra 1:1, God gives a word of hope. It says “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 and to put it in writing:

2 "This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: " ’The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Anyone of his people among you—may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem and build the temple of the LORD.”

Now why would a non-Jewish king be interested in rebuilding the Jewish temple? And why was this so important that the king issued this proclamation in his first year?

The answer is in verse one. It says that “the Lord MOVED his heart. Literally, the Hebrew text says that God woke him up. God says “I know you have goals and dreams for your career. But I’m waking you up to something more important. I’m giving you an opportunity to help my people.”

Proverbs 21:1 says that “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord. He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases.”

Some people say “I don’t want Barack Obama to become president. He’ll raise our taxes through the roof, and then the economy will be even worse than it is now.

And some people say “I don’t want John McCain to be president, because we’ll be in Iraq for the next 100 years! We’ll be spending all our money in the Middle East and not doing enough for our people right here!”

But Ezra chapter one reminds us that no matter who the leader is on earth, there’s a Leader over him in heaven. Proverbs 19:21 says that “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.”

We can say “Lord, I pray that your purpose will prevail in the life of our President. Stir the heart