Do you depend more on your network or personal influence than God? (116-2)

It requires great skill and God’s blessing for a leader to develop and utilize a network of strong, key relationships while functioning with total dependence on God. Read Ezra 7.

God allowed the first contingent of Jews to return to Judah from their captivity in Babylon in 538 BC when He moved in the heart of Cyrus, King of Persia (see Ezra 1:1-4). Their assignment from God was to resettle the land and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. The temple was finished under the leadership of Zerubbabel in 516 BC. According to Ezra 6, after the temple was completed there was a great celebration and the people reinstated the Passover, a festival honoring God for a miracle that had taken place in Egypt many years earlier. During the Passover celebration “…the Israelites who had returned from the exile ate it, together with all who had separated themselves from the unclean practices of their Gentile neighbors in order to seek the Lord, the God of Israel” (6:21).

Fifty-eight years later the Jewish people were no longer honoring their covenant with God made during the 516 BC Passover. God chose Ezra, a descendant of Moses’ brother Aaron, a man with influence with the king of Persia, a man respected among the Jewish leaders still living in exile in Babylon, and a priest to leave exile with a second group of Jewish settlers and to bring revival to the people living in Judah.

Ezra got the job done remaining totally dependent on God even though he utilized some key personal relationships:

• Ezra capitalized on his relationship with the king of Persia. While we don’t know the details of their relationship or interaction, we know from the result that Ezra had the political connections and savvy needed to win the king’s endorsement and support.
• Ezra used his strong relationships with his fellow Jews to persuade a group of strategic, influential Jewish leaders who, with their families, would make the five-month trip with him from Babylon to Jerusalem.

While it may have been easy for Ezra to feel confident in his personal ability to get the job done because of the influential people in his network, Ezra saw these relationships as part of his blessing from God because he never stopped working on his relationship with God. According to 7:10 “…Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.” As he depended on God’s daily guidance, Ezra stayed focused on the fact that any success a leader experiences ultimately flows from God’s gracious hand.

Do you find yourself depending more at times on your network or personal influence than God? This is a sure way to lose God’s blessing. Find a way, just like Ezra, to develop a course of study and time to keep your focus on God.