Ezra 7:23
23 Whatever the God of heaven has prescribed, let it be done with diligence for the temple of the God of heaven. Why should his wrath fall on the realm of the king and of his sons?

This verse is a small part of the Persian king Artaxerxes’ letter to Ezra; it let Ezra know that the king was okay with the Israelites going to visit Jerusalem and worshipping God.

Artaxerxes probably had some Jewish help drafting this, but the king himself was moved to do this for a “teacher of the law of the God of Heaven,” as Ezra was. The Jews had been stifled in exile for far too long, and Artaxerxes knew they had been chafing to go home. So he decrees that their return to Jerusalem is fine by him; he stands aside, allowing the Israelites to return home to worship.

There’s a little lesson here: just as Artaxerxes does not get in the way of the Jews’ worship of God, we should never let anything get in the way of God in our own lives. That means social beliefs, politics, work stress, family drama, what other people think–anything that takes our minds off “whatever the God of heaven has prescribed.” This doesn’t mean we don’t talk about anything else in life, but just that we don’t cloud our personal worship time with thoughts about these earthly things.

Think about how changed our lives would be if we had this uncluttered, undivided attitude about worship all the time. How often would we be praying? How close would we feel in our relationship to God? As someone who has a hard time getting her brain to hush about anything, I can say that I need a worship time that is full of God and only God. In fact, I think we can all use “quiet time with God,” these days.