May 30

A Peg in His Holy Place

And now for a little while grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage.

––Ezra 9:8, NKJV

The Jews’ return to Jerusalem after their seventy-year captivity in Babylon is a dramatic event in their history. In 538 BC Persia’s King Cyrus released the Jews from exile, which allowed them to make the 900-mile Return to Zion. Fifty years earlier, Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem. In effect, then, the Jews were returning to a city in ruins.

But despite the Temple’s utter destruction, and a scarcity of supplies, the Jews started to rebuild. And in the midst of it, even before the Second Temple was close to completion, the prophet Ezra thanked God for “a peg in His holy place.” Ezra 9:8 in The Message says it like this:

Now for a brief time God, our God, has allowed us, this battered band, to get a firm foothold in his holy place so that our God may brighten our eyes and lighten our burdens as we serve out this hard sentence.

Man of God, in the midst of the ruins of setback, adversity, or tragedy, God will give you a peg in his holy place—a stake to drive into the ground in the midst of the rubble. That’s the meaning here: like a peg or stake used to secure a tent, the Lord brought the Jews back to Jerusalem and back to their most holy place, the Temple—as ramshackle as it was, it was nonetheless a holy place. It’s God’s presence that brings holiness, not the place.

Likewise, Jesus is our shelter—no matter how rough or splintered our peg (or faith) may be, He covers us. Even when the walls of our life seem to be crumbling down, He is there, in the dust and the wreckage. How awesome to know that we don’t have to clean up the wreckage in our lives before we can approach His throne. He doesn’t expect us to have arrived before He meets us in our need. He only requires us to show up—to be open to His ability to rebuild our broken walls.

Like the Jews released from captivity, we can rejoice in our freedom and know that we always have a peg—a firm foundation—in His holy place and presence.

Father, thank You that You meet me right where I am and that I don’t need to clean up my life to approach Your throne.