As we enter the New Year, many people in our culture are thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. New Year’s Resolutions are usually things that are externally motivated; that is, they are things we feel we ought to do, but which we haven’t really owned, we haven’t really counted the cost and chosen them with our whole heart and mind and strength. And so when it gets tough to keep them, we fall away. Think of our under-used work-out equipment or fitness club memberships, half-done projects, partly-read books, abandoned hobbies and neglected honey-do lists!

But the Lord’s greatest promise was not merely about architecture, but it was a promise that He Himself would be there, abiding with His people. “I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the LORD, and I will be the glory in her midst” (2:5). He would be their protection outside the city, since Jerusalem had no walls of defense. And His very presence would be within the city as He once again came to dwell among them.