JUST BE 30-DAY CHALLENGE

Just Careful – Day Eighteen

Webster says ‘Careful’ means cautious in one’s actions, solicitously mindful of or about

Synonyms: accurate, painstaking, wary, precise, mindful, meticulous, scrupulous, fastidious

GOD says in Haggai 1:2-12, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’” Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains in ruins?” Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much but harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes but are not warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” This is what the Lord Almighty says, “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house which remains a ruin while each of you is busy with your own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and all the labor of your hands (NIV).”’
I remember the first time I read these verses. One of my daughters shared them with me. I was wrecked. I can go so far as to say these words haunted me and they would haunt me for many years to follow. I was this person and I kept company with others who listlessly wandered without purpose. But it isn’t what you think.
See, one thing that likely can never be said about me is that I am lazy. I don’t think there has ever been a lazy bone that I contend with. I was not raised to waste time or be lackadaisical in life. Our word ‘Careful’ here today actually strides right alongside yesterday’s word ‘Diligent’. And, over a great deal of time, while these verses in Haggai began to haunt me and be contentious in my spirit and conviction began to dissolve my indifference, I realized I had no purpose. We can have drive but have no diligence. We can have performance but have no passion.
It will cost you to be honest but there is so much reward when all the makeup is removed and the facelifts of our lives are placed on hold and the stage is allowed to grow cold and social media hibernates for a season. What I realized is I was ‘doing’ and ‘being’ everything I thought looked good and sounded good and appealed. But I was so empty. I was working hard and crunching numbers, and, yes, I was generous and ‘on point’. But I wasn’t present and I didn’t understand what it meant to be a good steward of time, money and talent. I thought it represented me. Not Him. Our stewardship should always represent HIM. Our willingness should always represent HIM.
I built my ‘home’, ladies. I built myself. I did all these things. The prettiest clothes and the most ostentatious of fields; I cooked gourmet meals and poured glasses half empty and the coins disappeared before I could even count them. My home was warm and cultivated but I seldom spent time toiling over my soul, His House.
The cost is tremendous but oh my goodness. it is worth it. To not have pursued an empty purpose all day that disappears like the wisp of your breath on a dandelion head is rejuvenating, He blew away all my self-efforts before because they had no purpose. But in my soul, He is fashioning a mansion that I suspect will withstand the shifting of the sands of time and change. It is not built with human hands nor does it meet this world’s standard, but looking into someone’s hopeless eyes and being able to offer hope and helping patch the broken pieces of someone’s soul makes me realize the foundations of His world and my world are so far different, and I have been working, all along, for the wrong reasons.
He is teaching me to let go. He is teaching me to be careful with my heart for from it flow the wellspring.

Day 18 Challenge: What empty purposes do you have in your life? What could you do to replace these things with more productive and God-centered efforts?