Your Word in the book of Haggai impressed upon me the necessity of doing things, something just for You Father. And how I am always caught, controlled and used by the dimension of “time.” Of course I know nothing else, and in this world it is the great limiting force. But I want to think and live more in the eternal perspective, Your perspective. Hard? Almost impossible, but it can be done. By seeing and accepting life from Your perspective, Your ways, Your character, it lifts me above the dimension of time into the eternal where I really live with You.
Your Spirit guides me into and through this life, opening my mind to Your ways. This is so very hard, but I believe it is key to a full, unselfish, pleasing-You life. The reality is I don’t really have to figure it all out. I just have to choose to trust You completely, have pure faith in You and Choose to live Your way and it will occur. Each day, each moment of my life, over time, I will be lifted up and changed. But it is a moment by moment decision-making process. Strength will only come and build as I live my life day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. A life-long process built on moment by moment choices. You’ve made it clear how hard it can be, but also how to do it, how You will give me all I need, and how You will help me. Sometimes that means seasons of difficulty and pain.
The specific event in Haggai was the rebuilding of the Temple after 70 years of exile. But we can also use it as a metaphor for our lives. We need to think in terms of anything we are doing or need to do in our lives. Things that will please You Father. Things we work on in life emotionally, physically, socially, familially and spiritually. And then apply Your Word. You say to the people of Israel through Haggai:
“They say this isn’t the right time to rebuild my temple.”
“Time” the great dictator, the great thief of joy and progress and growth, the one thing man can never create enough of. The way we judge Your responses to us Father. The way we structure all our lives. The sand that slips through our fingers never to be recovered. The event we wait for and build life systems around. The dimension in which we live and is the antithesis of Yours. It can break us or be for us. You go on to tell the Israelites:
“Do it just for me. Honor me. You’ve had great ambitions for yourselves, but nothing has come of it.”
Oh, Father! Have I ever done anything just for You? Not do it with thoughts of how I fit in or how I will be impacted? Just do it in pure trust and faith, because You said to, which makes it the right thing, with no fear? It is always about me! Somehow, some way I will be in there some place! And then You talk about how You got the Israelites attention:
“Because you’ve run around, caught up with taking care of your own houses, my Home is in ruins. That’s why. Because of your stinginess. And so I’ve given you a dry summer and a skimpy crop. I’ve matched your tight-fisted stinginess by decreeing a season of drought, drying up field and hills, withering gardens and orchards, stunting vegetables and fruit. Nothing—not man or woman, not animal or crop—is going to thrive.”
That should have gotten their attention and get mine. How many dry seasons in my life will it take to get through to me that You love me and will never do anything that will ultimately harm me? The last phrase tells me I will “thrive” by choosing Your way and living in Your dimension, regardless of what my human mind tells me. On this earth, in this world, in my community and society, life, my life ,will thrive the way You want it to, not the way I want, plan or others think it should. And I will have peace and joy and be fulfilled in Your dimension, the eternal. The end of Haggai says:
“I am about to shake up everything, to turn everything upside down and start over from top to bottom—overthrow governments, destroy foreign powers, dismantle the world of weapons and armaments, throw armies into confusion, so that they end up killing one another.”
What unbelievable comfort I receive, knowing You Father are in complete control of every major issue on earth. You alone are in control.
But while the major issues of the world are being addressed, that is not where I live. I live in the minor issues of one insignificant man. And the minor, insignificant issues of the world are major issues in my life. Those issues, my issues, You care about deeply and greatly. I am comforted in that in all the chaos and upheaval and tenuousness of this world, I can be steadfast and confident of who I am and how much You love me. And that love is all I need. You are there at my choosing to let go of life on earth, with all its minute choices each moment, and reach out and choose Your way and connect to You through and by the power of Your Spirit.
Every person who is Your child can live with the knowledge that:
“I will take you…as my personal servant and I will set you as a signet ring, the sign of my sovereign presence and authority. I’ve looked over the field and chosen you for this work.”
You Father, creator and ruler of the universe choose me for Your work. You prepare me through seasons of life, and I must trust You completely in pure faith, and live with an eternal perspective, without time applied to the daily, moment by moment events of my life.
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