Consider Your Ways!
Now therefore, thus says the Lordof hosts: “Consider your ways!” - Haggai 1:5
Notice, Haggai does not respond to the people with his words, but he waits on the Lord to speak. God through the prophet asked a legitimate question:“Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses,
and this templeto lie in ruins?” (Haggai 1:3). Do you think it is right for you to have everything you want but neglect the most important thing––that is, My house? Therefore, God called them to consider their ways.
God, through asking this question, desired to align His will with the will of His people. Think about it––they would have to stop and think about the question God had asked them. It gave them the time to think, meditate, concentrate and then they had the opportunity to answer the question. Why did God allow them this time? The Lord had caused them to examine their lives––there was no way of getting around it, they had to.
In Revelation 2:21, God spoke to the Church of Thyatira: And I gave her space to repent… God had given a space of time to repent from sin. God always gave a space for people to repent. I can see that space of time, right here, in this question that God gave to His people in Haggai 1:3.
God’s thought provoking question can apply to us today (Haggai 1:3). Man is always interested more in himself rather than the things of the Lord. We are also called by the Lord to consider our ways. When was the last time you took an honest inventory of your life? As you examine yourself, see if you have been neglectful in your relationship with the Lord. Meditate and concentrate on Isaiah 55:8-9. God has given us a space of time to repent of any ways that are contrary to His Word.
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
~Isaiah 55:8-9~
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