Zechariah 8:6 · World English Bible
Zechariah 8:6 Meaning Yahweh of Armies Says
Yahweh of Armies says: “If it is marvelous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous in my eyes?” says Yahweh of Armies.
What does Zechariah 8:6 mean?
What strikes a people as too good to be true is a measurement of them, never a measurement of God. Two measurements are running at once, and only one of them is about reality.
From the Self-Help reading below.
Zechariah 8:6 through 1 lens
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What strikes a people as too good to be true is a measurement of them, never a measurement of God.
Two measurements are running at once, and only one of them is about reality. Years of ruin hand a people references for scarcity, references harden into a feeling of certainty, certainty sets what they will ask for, and what they ask for sets what they will work toward and build.
Yahweh puts the question so the gap between the two numbers becomes visible. Astonishment is a reading on their instrument, not a report on what he can do. Nothing about the restoration got harder when the remnant decided it was impossible; they simply stopped preparing for it, and a people who stop preparing are not standing ready when it arrives.
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Live Zechariah 8:6 today
- Write down the thing you want but have quietly filed under impossible. Then write the first real step as if it were simply going to happen.
- Say that thing out loud to one person who will not laugh at you. Hearing yourself name it changes what you let yourself prepare for.
- When a plan at work gets killed with "that could never happen here," ask what would have to be true for it to happen. The room usually finds three answers.
What have you stopped preparing for because you decided it was too good to be true?
The same truth in other traditions
Bhagavad Gita
A person becomes what he believes himself capable of. Hold a small picture long enough and you live inside it.
Buddhism · Dhammapada
We are made by our thoughts. What seems impossible is usually a measurement of the mind taking the measurement.
Stoicism · Seneca
It is not that things are hard and so we do not dare. We do not dare, and so they stay hard.
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