Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord. Psalm 31:24.

Just before I woke up fully this morning, I heard that question – Will a man rob God? God asks that question of us. “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse – your whole nation – because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty. “You have spoken arrogantly against me,” says the Lord. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’ You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.’” Malachi 3:6-15.

Do we rob God by not trusting Him? In the notes below in our chapter, Nehemiah 6, (During these days, prophets such as Malachi proclaimed the coming of the Messiah (Malachi 3:1-3).

Nehemiah was being tricked by those who didn’t want the wall surrounding Jerusalem completed. They tried to lure him away, v. 1-8, they tried to get him to go into the temple to protect himself, v. 10. Nehemiah prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.” v. 9. In a way reading these things reminded me of when Jesus was tempted in the desert and prayed for strength, relying upon God for everything. So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God. v. 15-16.

With the help of our God – Father, Son, Spirit – we begin to see our connections with others of faith who chose to draw near to God. These accounts, these people of centuries and millennia before become real in our connection to them through faith in our Creator God. With eyes of faith we see the good God is working in our hearts desiring God’s Will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. He is our Creator and He is doing a good work! Not our work but His work. Look to God. Let Him speak to your heart. And then rejoice…He has never left us as orphans. He is working for our good.