Verse from Haggai

The Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.” Haggai 1:5

Scripture tells us of when God confronted the Israelites with a warning: “Give careful thought to your ways” (Haggai 1:7). After their captivity in Babylon, His people returned to Jerusalem, tasked to rebuild the temple. God had “moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia” (Ezra 1:1) to order the construction and provide funds (vv. 2-4). But after the people laid the foundation, opposition grew (4:1-5), so they neglected the project for fourteen years.

Through the prophet Haggai, God told them, “Give careful thought to your ways. . . . My house . . . remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house” (Haggai 1:7, 9). God was saying, “Think carefully about how you’re living. Are you doing what I want you to do?”

God disciplined His people (vv. 5-11), but when they resumed construction, He encouraged them, “I am with you . . . . Do not fear” (2:4-5). And the temple was completed in less than five years.

In what area of life do we need to “give careful thought to [our] ways”? Let’s ask God to show us and help us follow His correction.

Verse from Job

God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. Job 19:6

After the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel lost his faith. “Where were you, God of kindness?” he asked, recalling the evil he and others suffered. “In my childhood I did not expect much from human beings. But I expected everything from you.”

And yet, Wiesel realized later that his faith had never really left him. “It is because I believed in God that I was angry at God,” he told a journalist, “and still am.” You don’t get angry at someone you don’t believe exists.

We might feel uncomfortable expressing anger at God, but biblical characters did. “You deceived me, Lord,” the prophet Jeremiah cried (20:7). “Will you forget me forever?” David wrote (Psalm 13:1). “God has wronged me,” Job said (19:6). Unaware of Satan’s role in his misfortune, Job accused God of being cruel (10:3) and even subpoenaed Him to court (31:35)! While Job later discovered that his understanding was limited (42:3), it’s important to note God never rebukes his feelings.

Despite his questions, Elie Wiesel prayed, “Let us make up. It is unbearable to be divorced from you so long.” We too might be angry at God for not limiting the suffering in our world, but our expressing it to Him can become prayer in disguise—keeping us close to the God who wants us to bring not just our praise but our anger to Him too.

Verse from Psalm

The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. Psalm 121:8

While it’s not wrong to enjoy unexpected blessings, big breaks, or once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, a desire for enjoyment can easily turn into a fear of missing out. We can even be tempted to think God holds out on us or loses sight of us. However, the “Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:2) is our ever-watchful and never-sleeping provider and protector (vv. 3-7). So we don’t have to fret over detours, delays, or even missed opportunities. God will watch over our “coming and going both now and forevermore” (v. 8).

During times of affliction, seasons of abundance, and in every mundane moment God plans for us in-between, we’re always in His line of sight. We won’t miss out on anything God has planned for us to experience.

Verse from Jeremiah

The potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Jeremiah 18:4

Not much is known about Adelaide Pollard, and that’s sort of the point. She was a humble servant of God who wanted no recognition for herself. At the age of forty, she felt a strong calling to be a missionary to Africa, but that door was closed to her, leaving her greatly discouraged. Yet Adelaide was reminded of a verse: “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand” (Jeremiah 18:6). Later, she penned a hymn with these lyrics: “Thou art the potter, I am the clay.”

The image in Jeremiah has much to speak into our lives today: “The pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him” (18:4). This is a picture of how God reshapes us into His better purpose. Whatever we think we should do and be, God may have another shape for our lives: “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand” (v. 6).

Eventually Adelaide did go to Africa, but it may be that God’s shape for her life had more to do with other things—perhaps writing that hymn, “Have Thine Own Way,” which has inspired millions in the years since. When we feel “on hold” in what we want to do, we might think about how God is shaping us in the meantime. We do well to let God have His own way and wait, “yielded and still,” for His greater purpose.

Verse from Philippians

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Philippians 2:5

Jesus didn’t cling to His divinity and refuse to assist humanity. Though He was “in very nature God, [He] did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage” (Philippians 2:6). As a human, Christ was able to become our sin offering and sacrifice Himself for us. He saw our need for help and salvation, and He humbly laid down His life (v. 8). Paul wrote, “He made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant” (v. 7).

We’re called to imitate Jesus’ attitude and sacrificial ways in our relationships with others. As He helps us, let’s humbly serve them no matter how lowly the job may seem.

Verse from Joshua

I am with you as I was with Moses. Joshua 3:7

The people of ancient Israel faced a crucial river crossing in order to enter the promised land. However, “the Jordan [was] at flood stage” (Joshua 3:15), a challenge that would grow their faith. God told Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses” (v. 7).

Joshua told the people, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you” (v. 11). Taking the ark, the priests stepped into the Jordan, and “the water from upstream stopped flowing” (vv. 15-16). The entire nation stepped across on a dry riverbed (v. 17).

From time to time we’ll face “river crossings”—impossible situations that can grow our faith if we’ll turn to the one who makes the way across. The greatest of these crossings is from this life into the next. No matter what it is, the God who was with Moses, Joshua, and the Israelites also makes a way for us.

Verse from Luke

“For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭9:25‬ ‭

There was this man who once had a picture in his office of a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer with the caption, "Who says you can't take it with you?" While it is humorous, it is also wrong ... DEAD wrong. 

If we lose our souls in the pursuit of things, what of lasting value have we gained? Is it worth losing the only thing that really matters?