God Remembers And Blesses In His Own Time

In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying, (Zechariah 1:1).

The words, "word of the LORD" are used over 3000 times in the Bible to reinforce the fact that the Bible is the very word of God. It's not a book about God; it's a book authored by God. Every word in the Bible is the word of God, inspired by God and written down by men. Every word is there for a reason, to teach something, and that's true even if you or I don't know what the reason is.

Zechariah 1:1 looks like nothing more than an introductory sentence, but since every word in the Bible is there for a reason, to teach something, there must be something here, and in fact there is a teaching here, hidden behind the names.

Darius is not really a proper name; it's a title. There is a message beneath the three Hebrew names Zechariah, Berechiah, and Iddo.

Zechariah means "God remembers." Berechiah means, "God blesses." Iddo means, "In his own time." There's one the main messages of the whole book of Zechariah, hidden in the very first verse.

God remembers and God blesses in His own time.

These words were written after the return from the captivity when the Jewish people were going through some very hard times. They had lost everything, families were broken up, and now they were outcasts in their own land, with enemies everywhere. Life was hard. We can't imagine how hard it was. Zechariah was one the prophets who worked with the people, and God (through him) wanted the people to know that God remembers and blesses His people, in his own time.

Today I want that to be our devotional thought. Today, even though we've never been in captivity, life is hard. People still lose everything they have sometimes. Families still break up. Christians are much like outcasts anymore, we're citizens of heaven living in a hostile, foreign land. Family members can disappoint us, friends can turn on us, bad health comes up more than we'd like for it to, and sometimes there seems to be very little stability anywhere, even in the good old U.S.A.

The only good news we have here is the word of the Lord. It says all these troubles of life have a temporary nature, so we have no reason to despair at any time. God remembers and God blesses, in His own time.

Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Whatever you or I may be enduring today will not last. God will remember you (not that He's ever forgotten anything; He's just trying to teach us something). God will bless you. It's going to happen on God's timetable, not ours.

Take heart; the only permanent condition you have is a reservation in heaven.

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