A New Tune - Pt 2

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors. (Haggai 1:7-11 ESV).

So, let’s begin this little trek through the prophet’s writing. Remember, the first wave of exiles had returned to Jerusalem from Babylon in 538 B.C. Now, some twenty years later, the temple still lay in ruin. Instead of rebuilding God’s house, the people were pouring their energies and monies into renovating their own houses. They were saying that “the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord” (Haggai 1:2). Yet, God had a different opinion. First, comes the rhetorical question: “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” (Haggai 1:4). Then follows the command: “Build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified” (Haggai 1:8). The threshold of your fresh start, you new tune, can be a time to examine yourself. It may be there is something God has been increasingly been calling you to, but you’ve either ignored it, or worse, dismissed it saying, “The time has not yet come.”Each of us ought to be in a constant state of examination for that direction of God to build, or to engage, so that God “may take pleasure in it and that [he] may be glorified”? We must recognize the ways we simply build our own kingdom, while neglecting God’s? It might be that God’s blessing is being withheld because his house “lies in ruins, while each of us busies ourselves with our own house” (Haggai 1:9). Perhaps this little reminder will spark with you to stop procrastinating what God has been drawing you toward. Perhaps it’s time to change your tune from the excuse “the time has not come” to the resolve “the time has now come”. I have found that this first step is always the most difficult. Somehow we become accustomed to being a people with “holes in our bags” (v. 8). That has never been Gods intent. His desire is that we have life and that abundantly. Perhaps your abundant life just needs you to start with a step.