I don’t know about you but for me, sometimes it’s hard to find quiet time for God. I’ve had my morning alarm set for 5 am for the past 9 years for personal bible study, but it’s harder than ever to get up because I’m staying up later.
Now, why do you suppose? It’s the dang internet! There is so much information to learn, so I stay up late! If school had included using the internet back in my day, I would have loved school!
Finding time for God can be challenging; and yet we say He’s the most important person to us in the world! I know I’m not the only person who wants to learn how to do things, and make this and that. I’ve tried different ways of managing my time, to the point of giving myself time limits (that don’t work) and calendaring my days for certain activities; and then of all things, our pastor tells us today we should schedule a day each week to care for God’s house. You see, the Sunday school lessons have been out of the book of Haggai for the past two weeks. Guess what that’s about? Taking care of God’s house. We need to give our church home some attention, too! So, I already have an activity for each day of my week, and now I have to create another day?! I need eight days in my week instead of seven.
Haggai 1:1-15 “1 In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,
2 Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built.
3 Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying,
4 Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?
5 Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
6 Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.
7 Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.
8 Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.
9 Ye looked for much, and, lo it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.
10 Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.
11 And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.
12 Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the Lord.
13 Then spake Haggai the Lord’s messenger in the Lord’s message unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord.
14 And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God,
15 In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.”
When it comes right down to it, none of us give God’s house or even Him as much time as we should. So how can any of us say we love God more than anyone else, with our whole mind, whole heart, whole soul and whole strength? (This is the first Commandment).
When we compare how many minutes of each day we spend surfing the internet to how many are spent with God (or reading His Word), we can see where we fall short each day. Do we spend as much time taking care of His house as we do on our own? And then, as Lawrence said, “our own bodies are the temple of the Lord. How well do we take care of that?”
One may blame it on the devil, who is the deceiver, distractor and genius of illusions, but it’s really just us. If we want something bad enough we’ll use extreme measures to obtain it. How badly do we want eternal life and time with God? It is a reality check.
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