Jeshua was the high priest of Judah.It’s not that Jeshua (sometimes called Joshua) did not have plenty of reason to wallow in his troubles. He lived during the time when all the leaders of Judah and their families had been exiled to Babylon. The exile had stripped them of virtually everything they had before—property, prestige, power—and now they had recently returned to their devastated land. Surely it would have been enough to make anyone feel completely hopeless at the future that lay ahead.
But Jeshua, who was the high priest, and Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, chose instead to work. As soon as they returned to Judah, they set up the altar so that the daily sacrifices prescribed in the Law of Moses could be resumed. Immediately after this, they got to work rebuilding the temple and completed the foundation (Ezra 3–4).
After a long delay in the project due to opposition from hostile neighbors, the prophets Haggai and Zechariah stirred up Jeshua and Zerubbabel to finish the temple, and the work was finally completed (Ezra 5–6).
Despite all the loss they had already experienced and the hardships that lay ahead, Jeshua and Zerubbabel chose to take up God’s call to rebuild the altar and the temple and bring glory to Him. We all face hard times—and we have the opportunity to make the same choice in life. In God’s power, choose not to wallow but to work to bring glory to God in the midst of difficulty.