REORIENTING TO GOD

Note: this is one of several posts stemming from my study of Haggai-Zechariah, which I am undertaking over this next year and hoping to do some writing from as well as producing a manuscript in the near future.

Imagine you move to a city where you family lived for generations, but you never did. You are returning there to restore a worship center and a whole society that went missing seventy years previous. What would be your first priorities? Like an ultimate Survivor start-up, you would build shelter, find food and water, and figure out how life will continue once the supplies run dry.

This was the life of many Israelites who returned to Jerusalem to Babylon. They returned to their city with the task of reestablishing the temple and their culture. They started with basic life needs and struggled on from there.

Then they got a message from the Lord through the prophet Haggai, “What about my house?”

Now this question strikes me as odd since the Lord made a point of telling his people that his house could not contain him, nor could it substitute for him. Part of their issue with Yahweh was relying on the existence of the temple, but not the Lord of the temple.

When they returned to the land, they did what was natural and good – settle in and live. They missed part of their purpose for being there – reestablish the worship life and relationship with their God. They knew the temple was supposed to be built. But in their mind, it would have to wait. The Lord had another plan in mind.

Our family relocated to the “homeland” of Central California after living in Oregon for ten years. We still feel like we are “moving in” a year later. Finding and keeping a job has been a priority. But what of the kingdom work the Lord wants to do? In the midst of living, our relationship to the Lord does not go on hold. I know we recongized our heightened dependence on the Lord during this time. But are we also plugged in to his agenda while we attend to life matters?

How about you? How would you answer this question, “Is life overtaking your orientation to God and his kingdom work for you? How are the transitions of life, whether large or small, moving you more into his plan or away from it?”

The Lord is moving us through this season of life and part of our intentional activity is to remain oriented to him. Where we find ourselves loosing perspective (and it has happened), we need to reorient to Him. May we here the message of Haggai and know that the Lord is with us as we reorient our lives to his plan for us in the world.