Ezra 10:16-17. The returned exiles have been told by Ezra to separate themselves from any foreign wives. To this end they have proposed making a list of those who married foreign women while in exile. Here Ezra selects the heads of houses to make the list. "On the first day of the tenth month they sat down to examine the matter, and by the first day of the first month they had come to the end of all the men who had married foreign women."

Sometimes we just have to get down in the weeds and do the work. I know that I am a "big picture" person myself, and I often resist sitting down to "examine the matter." Getting out the paperwork and receipts, calling and talking to people, taking notes, making lists, doing the math, all of this seems bothersome and irksome to me often, but it is all necessary sometimes, and it is necessary for me to do, not someone else.

My problem is that it often feels like a waste of time - I think "Look at the big issues I should be dealing with! I don't have time to figure out lists of people who married foreign wives! Besides, I didn't marry a foreign wife, why should I be concerned about it? And can't we just leave them alone, live and let live?" But no, Ezra has been inspired by God to make this rule, and the people understood and agreed and proposed making the list. The heads of the houses were chosen to sit down for months and make the list. And the list they came up with is even preserved in the Bible - the next twenty verses are the names of those who married foreign women. So this was obviously important, and God's work, and they did it with diligence, honesty, and without grumbling.

This is a lesson for me when I balk at having to do basic, necessary work instead of pondering what I see as the greater issues!