Consider Your Ways

Good Morning,

Haggai 1:5 (NIV)
Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways."

This verse caused me to pause and really think about it this morning. The King James reads, "Consider your ways." Either way, I realized that much too often I don't really give enough "careful thought" nor do I really take the time to "consider" what would be "my ways." I guess there are many of us in a like situation about this, don't you think?

So, what, exactly, are my ways? Simply put, it's just the way I go about living my life each day. God asks us to give thought, careful thought, to the way we are living our lives...right now. Yes, we should also probably take a look at how lived in the past, which has gotten us to this point in our lives, but it is much, much more important to consider what we're doing in the here and now. Also, it goes without saying, we need to think about how we plan on going on FROM this point in our lives.

We may or may not be overjoyed at what we find when we give that careful thought to how we're going about our lives today. We might even be greatly disappointed when we consider how we've lived in the past. But, neither the past, nor the present, should keep us from doing better, living better, being more what God wants of us, in the future.

Yes, we need to give much careful thought and truly consider our ways. Bottom line is that if, when we do think about and consider the ways we're living, we aren't thrilled, well, that would be a pretty good indication that we need to make some alterations as to how we're living. Yes, I know, that's pretty elementary and simple. It's about as obvious as one can imagine, isn't it? The trick is that we've got to obey what God has told us in this short verse. The trick is that we really DO take the time to think about and consider how we're living.

Remember, as we used to say in ancient times (you know, around 1965 or so), "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." Today can be the day that, after careful thought and consideration, we can make changes that we know are necessary.

Love, peace, and blessings,

David