Zechariah 4:10 – For who has despised the day of small things?
For these seven rejoice to see
The plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.
They are the eyes of the Lord,
Which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth.

There’s something about genesis that is dear to the Father’s heart. I think of how the Father looked out at the universe He created and declared it was good. It was so new. So fresh. So pure. There would be tragedy. There would be pain. Heartache multiplied upon heartache. There would be death… In His great, unfathomable heart the Father knew what was to come; He knew what the price of redemption would be… from the beginning. But for that moment, it was good.

Zerubbabel laid the foundation of the temple. It wasn’t much… If one was to stand there with Zerubbabel, on a hill above Jerusalem, and looked out at the land promised to Abraham, the task of rebuilding, of doing anything meaningful, would have been too much. Too much had been lost…

When the temple was complete, it still wasn’t much. Those that had seen the previous temple wept. It just wasn’t all that impressive… but the Father rejoiced!

The Father knew what was coming. He knew He would commune with His own Son in that temple; but He also knew Antiochus Epiphanes would sacrifice a pig upon its altar, that it would be burned to the ground after the blood of a million jews was shed in Jerusalem; He knew the very stones Zerubbabel used to build the temple would be used to build the Dome of the Rock.

You need to know it wasn’t the temple that made the Father rejoice. The Father rejoiced in Zerubbabel’s worship. He saw His own dear children following in His own footsteps; building and creating, but with the purpose of honoring Him. It wasn’t the gift, it was the heart of the giver. It was a small thing, but Zerubbabel was faithful in the small things and that blesses the Father.

-abe