Friday, August 29, 2008
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Whose House are You Building?
"Give careful thought to you ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it" (Haggai 1:6).
We are called to live thoughtful rather than thoughtless lives. We are called to examine ourselves and our ways. How is it going? Rather than just live out our days, do we step back at some time each day, or even every once in a while and reflect on what is going on with us? God calls this wisdom and encourages us to get it at any and all cost. Experience is not enough. We need wisdom, skill for living really, and the only way to get that is to think about what we are doing and how life is going for us. "Give careful thought to your ways," the prophet Haggai says.
Are things going well right now? Or could they be better? Is life all that you thought it could or would be? Or does it feel in some way like the prophet describes? Are we putting tons of effort into living and yet it never seems to make it? Are you exhausted trying to make ends meet and the ends just seem to be getting further and further away? What is your, "you do ___________, but it doesn't work out the way that you hoped? We all know how much life here and now can reflect what we read in Haggai 1:6. "Give careful thought to your ways."
Haggai wrote this around 520 B.C., just a few years after the people of Israel had returned from exile in Babylon. Ezra and Nehemiah, his contemporaries, were also encouraging the people to rebuild the ruined city of Jerusalem. The whole city, including the temple had been ransacked when the Babylonians invaded. Now, the people had come back and begun the task of rebuilding and their first task had been to put a roof over their own head. I don't think that God had an issue with that. The problem, and this is what the prophet Haggai picks up on is that they had already been there ten years and yet they were still saying, "The time has not yet come for the LORD's house to be built" (Haggai 1:2). The word of the Lord, through Haggai, was, "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?" (Haggai 1:3).
They had fallen into a trap that many of us have fallen into and may even be in right now. It is the "I'll get to it God, just as soon as I . . . ." I have just started a new job. We've just bought a house or a car or whatever. We are busy with our family. I've got this or that or this other thing to take care of, and then . . . . then, I will be available to you, God. Things, even good things have a way of monopolizing our lives and taking all of our time and energy and money. God gets the leftovers and there never seems to be anything left! If they had build houses for them and their families and then immediately set to work to build the house of God, I think that that would have been fine. But that didn't happen. No, now their own houses were "in need" of redecorating! They were busy beautifying their own houses while God's house went neglected! "Give careful thought to your ways."
"This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,' says the LORD. 'You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?' declares the LORD Almighty. 'Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each or you is busy with his own house'." (Haggai 1:7-9).
In the Old Testament, God had the people build him a temple where his presence would reside, even though in some sense, he never dwelt in temples made by man (see Acts 7:44-50). We, the people of God, are now the temple of his Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19) and we are the temple of the living God (2 Corinthians 6:16). So, I am clearly not talking about you pouring your energy and money into a church building or a building of any kind, as helpful as those resources can be to God's people. The way that we rebuild the house of God which is lying in ruins, is to rebuild peoples lives. God is asking us today, whether we are the center of attention or whether he is. He will come to us today, in the form of other people whom he wants to build up and encourage, and "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40). Whose house are we building?
"As you come to him, the living Stone — rejected by men but chosen by God, and precious to him — you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 2:4-5).
Give careful thoughts to your ways. Are you building for yourself only or are you building the Lord's house? Are we making excuses for why we can't do anything yet? Or are we giving ourselves also to the Lord and his people? When we are only or even primarily out for ourselves, we will work very hard and everything will come up short. When we give of our time and energy and resources to the Lord and are concerned about his house, scripture says that we will not lack. And, not only that, we will earn for ourselves an eternal blessing that no one can take away.
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