God does things, but he also prevents things. His hand is involved in every aspect, every detail of our lives. Things happen because God orders them to happen, and he orders them to happen before they happen and in the way that they happen. But he also ensures in the course of providence that certain other things do not happen…God prevents, because there is no way that Tattenai can do anything if King Cyrus had actually given them instructions to rebuild this temple. While this letter is on its way, and while this letter is coming back with the answer, the work has to go on. The eye of God was upon them. God's preventative providence.
We give thanks all the time for things that God does, don't we? We are thankful for this and that and the other…things that we can enumerate…things that God has done in our personal lives, our family lives, or the life of [your] church. But there are ten thousand things that God has prevented from happening in your life and mine: accidents that could have occurred; tragedies that could have befallen us; deaths that could have happened; all kinds of issues that God has intervened in the silent work of his preventative providence. It is something we should consider, something we should thank him for, something we should worship him for.1
Derek W. H. Thomas
3 At the same time Tattenai the governor of the province Beyond the River and Shethar-bozenai and their associates came to them and spoke to them thus: “Who gave you a decree to build this house and to finish this structure?”