Limiting God

It's never a good idea to put God in a box. I enjoyed this scripture from Haggai this morning. I am reading the English Standard Version for the next 5 years. I just started Rosy's journal Bible. I have writer's block every time I think about writing my letter to her in the coverlet. Interesting, because I found it so easy to write Katrina's 5 years ago when I set out on this project. It feels as though the stakes have been raised, and I need to be so much more mindful of what I say to my little Rosebud in her Bible.

"Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them in a bag with holes. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors." ~ Haggai 1:4-11

Today I am meditating on these verses. Obviously, I go to a physical building for Sunday worship of the Lord of hosts. It is not in shambles. But what can I do to build it up? How can I shift out of a consumer mentality in this time of economic and political crisis and change? How can I become a contributor, in a deep sense, to my faith community? Even more, how can I reach beyond those borders to the vast Church, and specifically to God's people? Instead of letting these trials focus me inward, to my own family, how can they propel me outward, to focus on others with my children and husband at my side?