In every age, there is a group of people who lament that things are not like they were back in the Good Ol’ Days. 

Some of us are old enough to remember when the Dallas Cowboys went to the playoffs every year and won Super Bowls. Those were the Good Ol’ Days.

There are a lot of names on lists in the first two chapters of Ezra. These were some of the exiles who had been taken to Babylon years before who now returned with their children and grandchildren. This was the remnant of the remnant. 

In some ways, the details of Ezra chapters 1-3 are a bit sad. What a hodgepodge group! In other respects, this assemblage represents the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. Sadly, as well-intentioned as most of these people were, beginning again involved repeating the same old problems that cause them to be sent into exile in the first place. Some lessons either never get learned or have to be re-learned again and again. 

Those who wept when they remembered what the temple used to look like, were among those people who disobeyed God so egregiously that led to the exile in the first place. Those Good Ol’ Days were not as good as those people remembered. 

Even when the Good Ol’ Days were better in some respect, there is no going back. We can only live now and aim at what is to come. If there is ever going to be any time or season called Good Ol’ Days in the future, we better get busy making them happen now.

• What does a preferred future look like? 
• What steps are necessary to get there?
• Who needs to do what, how, and by when?

Before we begin answering these questions for everyone else, let’s start with ourselves. May we become our own remnant of the remnant who choose not only to honor the past but to build a preferred future. Let’s ask our Father in heaven what that would look like. Let’s do whatever he shows us. Let’s follow wherever he leads. 

Our Father in heaven is in the soul restoration business (Psalm 23:3). Restored souls restore families, restore communities, restore the world. We are the elements of renewal in God’s hands.