Are you looking at rubble?
I was spending some time with the Lord the other day and He led me to an interesting passage in Haggai 2:1-9. The Lord is speaking to His children who have returned from exile. He has commanded them to rebuild His temple. The temple had been previously destroyed and all that remained was a pile of rubble…..A daunting task to say the least. I can imagine being one of those people saying “How in the world does God expect us to do this?” The situation probably seemed hopeless to many of the people. Some who had returned had seen the glory of the temple Solomon built and I can imagine they thought they could never make it look that good again. Then the Lord spoke through Haggai. The Lord recognized that some of them remembered the glory of previous temple. He said (paraphrase) “There are those of you who remember the way the temple used to be and now all you have is rubble and desolation. There is no comparison between the two.” But then the Lord delivers a promise filled with encouragement. He said “Even though all you see is destruction be strong! Work hard because I am with you! Remember the covenant I made with you as you came out of Egypt? I have not forgotten! My Spirit is with you. Do not be afraid!”
What do you see now as you look at your life? Are all you can see destruction, desolation, hopelessness, despair, loneliness, emptiness……rubble? Do you feel like you are in the wilderness all by yourself? Do you often remember the past when you feel like times were better? Does Egypt look attractive to you at this point in your life? Do you want to go back and make things the way they used to be? Is the pain too much for you? Do you just want to run and hide? I can relate to all of those feelings. Feeling this way is definitely not the most enjoyable way to spend time. Are you angry at God? Do you feel like He led you out into the middle of nowhere? Were you expecting things to get better and everything seems to have gotten worse? Where are the promises of God? Where is God? I think that for those of us who have been down this road, there are a couple of different paths we can take.
One path might be to try and go back to the way things were. We remember times in our lives when we knew that God was with us. We remember when we felt the blessings of God on us so if we could just get back to that, things would be better. Where is the deception in that? Is God a God of yesterday or today? Does God want to take us back to the past or does God want to constantly being doing a “New thing” in our lives? If we choose to walk in obedience doesn’t God want to continually change us from “glory to glory?” I believe that if we try to go back to “Egypt” we will miss everything God wants to do in our lives. Guess what!? You have not “peaked” in the Kingdom of God. Even if you had been moving in the Spirit, walking in the anointing and seeing God move through you daily in the past, God still wants to do a new thing in your life taking you to higher and higher levels today and in the future! Here is the promise of God in Haggai 2:9 “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than the former and in that place I will give peace!” What does this mean? Can we live in peace if we are living in the glories of the past? I don’t think so.
The other path we can choose to take is one of trust and faith. We can survey the “rubble” in front of us and remember some things. That it’s the wilderness where Father speaks comfortably to us (Hos 2), that He will never leave us or forsake us (Josh 1), that God offers us great courage if we accept it (Josh 1), that He never forgets His promises and is always with us (Haggai 2), that He will strengthen us to do the work He has called us to (Haggai 1), that we will never face anything beyond what we have the ability to conquer through Jesus (1 Cor 10) and if we are faithful in putting all of our hope and trust in our Daddy the work that He will erect in our lives will be so much more fulfilling, glorious, amazing, joyful, healing etc. than anything that has ever come before!
I have been in the “rubble” and I know many of you have to or are in it now. The promises of God are TRUE! The work God did in me pales in comparison to anything in my past and He continues to do a new thing in me daily! Trust in your deliverer and redeemer. Grasp onto the hand He is holding out to you. Don’t go back to Egypt! Some of the things God may bring to you in the wilderness can be scary. They can challenge what you have held to be true your entire life. They can challenge who you thought you were. But if you can lay those things down and allow Father to take you on a journey, the longing and void that has been present will begin to be filled. That's what transformation is and Jesus said everyone must be transformed (Matt 18). It’s not easy to walk through the wilderness! HAVE GREAT COURAGE AND MOVE FORWARD! God bless!
Jesse Birkey
