Field of Dreams

Ezra 2:68 "Some of the heads of the fathers' houses, when they came to the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem, offered freely for the house of God, to erect it in its place:" NKJV

"Field of Dreams" is a great movie. Kevin Costner plays a guy who got an idea…who had a vision…who wanted something to happen. The guy loved baseball. He loved baseball history. Why? Because his Dad loved baseball. He was really into Shoeless Joe Jackson and some of the guys who played ball. He had one simple idea: "If you build it, they will come." Now, this is kind of goofy, but he decided to build an amazing baseball field in the middle of nowhere…in fact in the middle of a cornfield. When he did this, a bunch of the old players walked out of the cornfield to play baseball…and he got to play catch with his Dad. The concept: "If you build it they will come" meant that these old guys would return. But more than that happened. People started showing up from all over the place. Cars lined up for miles to come to this field.

Now this is just a story. It is a figment of some writer's imagination. Ezra is not just a story…it really happened. But Cyrus did not build it first…he just shared the vision…and the people's hearts were stirred and they came. When people's hearts were stirred what happened next? They started to come. In fact, this entire chapter is dedicated to outline who came and how many came. When it was all said and done 42,360 people's hearts were stirred. 42,360 people decided to uproot themselves from where they were and move. 42,360 people made the decision to get out of their comfort zone and come back to a place where God would use them. 42,360 people brought their servants, and horses, and mules, and camels, and donkeys with them. And the heads of these 42,260 people brought their gold and their silver and offered it freely to build the house of God.

Vision from God is power. That vision communicated properly is stirring. People respond. They respond by coming. They respond by moving. They respond by giving. I think that we can change Costner's line to say: "If you communicate it, they will come." It happened in Ezra's day. It can happen today.

Question: What is God's vision? What does He want? How do we communicate it? We must be sure…then we have to open our mouths.