Great Shout-out To God

All the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.

Ezra 3:11, NIV

God and the book of Ezra are getting a shout-out from me today! Tucked between 2 Chronicles and Nehemiah is the ten-chapter book of Ezra. Besides being one of the easiest book titles in the Bible to spell, it is so insightful about people—people just like us! We get glimpses of their responses to life’s changing circumstances as they weathered a lot of delays and disappointments before finally being able to celebrate.

The book of Ezra came alive to me because my life is full of change too. This historical book records the story of God’s people returning to Jerusalem from a seventy-year captivity with a goal in mind: to rebuild the Temple. When the foundation for the new Temple was completed, there was a huge, loud celebration!

A year ago I learned the term “shout-out” when my then twenty-year-old daughter commented that I got a shout-out about something I’d done well. When I read this verse, I smiled at the thought that God’s people were giving Him a shout-out in joy and thanksgiving because the initial stages of the Temple were finished, but older men were shouting out with tears of disappointment because they knew it wasn’t as magnificent as the original place of worship. No one could distinguish the sounds of joy from the sounds of weeping because the people made so much noise (verses 12-13).

Doesn’t that sound like some of our interactions at times with other Christians who are different from us and have different ways of looking at things? Instead of getting snippy with each other for seeing things differently, let’s focus together on who we’re all praising.

Let’s give a unified shout-out to the only true God! Next time we see someone in church worshiping a bit differently than we do, let’s thank the Lord that He speaks uniquely to each of His own.