Ezra 8

For I was ashamed to request of the king an escort of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy on the road, because we had spoken to the king, saying, “The hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek Him, but His power and His wrath are against all those who forsake Him.”  So we fasted and entreated our God for this, and He answered our prayer. vv.22-23

Read chapter 8
Have you ever boasted proudly about something, but really were fearful?  We see that with Ezra here, yet his boasting wasn't in vain, but faced that inner fear that only made him stronger in his faith in God.
Ezra, not as well known among the other great men of faith in the Bible, yet one we should all know more and learn as a common man as he was.  Ezra was no great king or prophet, he was a scribe and he spoke highly and confidently of his God.  Ezra had asked already asked the king to gather men and materials for going to Jerusalem to help in the building and sacrifices at the temple; he had shared with the king how great his God was and of His power and wrath.  Now as Ezra and hundreds of men are traveling through enemy land becomes fearful of not having soldiers of Persian as protection of all the men, women and children he's traveling with.  Something that could have been so easily of a request and granting, he was too ashamed to ask for he boasted about his God and didn't want to show that he truly believed what he spoke. 

he knew that he had but to ask and have an escort from the king that would ensure their safety till they saw Jerusalem. Artaxerxes’ surname, ‘the long-handed'... could reach these wandering plunderers, and if Ezra and his troop were visibly under his protection, they could march secure. So it was not a small exercise of trust in a higher Hand that is told us here so simply. It took some strength of principle to abstain from asking what it would have been so natural to ask, so easy to get, so comfortable to have. But, as he says, he remembered how confidently he has spoken of God’s defense, and he feels that he must be true to his professed creed, even if it deprives him of the king’s guards. He halts his followers for three days at the last station before the desert, and there, with fasting and prayer, they put themselves in God’s hand; (MacLaren's Exposition)

This scribe's robes were a breastplate to this brave and humble heart in God.  How can you practice from relying on simple and natural reliances (not that it's wrong), and pray for God's wisdom and direction?  How have you felt like Ezra in boasting about your God, but struggling with putting that in to practice when faced with scary situations?  Bible scholar Matthew Henry challenges us to, "decline advantages which are within our reach, lest we should cause others to stumble, and so our God be dishonoured. Let us ask wisdom of God, that we may know how to use or to refuse lawful things."