Chapter 19

Chapter 19 - The Story

I had to wrestle with this a bit.  It's not that I felt like this chapter didn't belong or didn't matter.  It did, for a variety of reasons.

But I've had one of those days that had sweetness and awfulness to it.  And I think I needed this day to prepare me for writing.  Because I have to remember that God is good.  He's very good.

Today we went through Chapter 19 from Haggai's writing.  A frustrating text that highlights God's grief at the temple being so diminished when the people returned.  He was hurting for his home to be rebuilt, in the middle of their rebuilding.

Yes, I think it had to do with their priorities.  It's a great case for tithing and giving to the local body.  It's important.  It is important to becoming devoted, mature followers of Jesus.

I think, though, that the target is more defined and more direct.  In the Old Testament, it was God's only place to dwell with his people.  They built their own homes without providing a place for their God to be near them.

I want God near me.  Better yet, I need God with me.  Because he's good.  Because he's mine.  Because he knows me and loves me in a way that is so unbelievable and so unending, that it defies logic.  Nobody loves me the way he does.  Not my mom.  Not my husband.  Not my son.  I can't wrap my mind, let alone my heart, around that very simple fact.  The totality of love wants to live with me.

In my newest testament life, that is the difference.  I can't have an existence that works without God.  I need him here.  It's the only way I'll make it through the insane roller coaster of the people who I need to love and the people who disappoint me the most, and when those people are the same people.  It's the only way I can look myself in the mirror when I have days that are reckless and I don't deserve someone loving me.

 It is God, expressed through the loving sacrifice of his son Jesus - the high priest who sits next to his father, interceding on my behalf when I need it, and when I don't deserve it.  It's the Holy Spirit who checks me into the boards when I think awful thoughts; who counsels me when I don't understand why dumb things happen.

So yes.  Giving out of my first-fruits is maturity.  Making a place for God so he can be here with me is necessity.  Critical importance.  I need him so close that I can run into his arms.

Eliza Cortes Bast