Haggai 1:4-8, 12-14
[Is it] time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house [lie] waste? Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages [to put it] into a bag with holes. Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD. . . . Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the LORD their God had sent him, and the people did fear before the LORD. Then spake Haggai the LORD'S messenger in the LORD'S message unto the people, saying, I [am] with you, saith the LORD. And the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the LORD of hosts, their God.
After the Word of the Lord through Haggai reminded the people that all of their efforts, which had come to nothing or at least less than they had expected or wanted, He reminded them that God still had a plan for them. Even though the Lord was responsible for blowing on their goods and wealth and the like, He was prepared to turn them unto Himself again, if they would simply do the work He asked of them. And they did it (verse 14). Amazing!
All it took was some encouragement from a man of God, and the people realized the err or their ways before God and returned to a stance of reverential fear of the Lord their God (verse 12)! And when that happened, the gracious LORD, God's promise was spoken through the prophet again, "I am with you, saith the LORD."
What amazing words, from a God who has no obligation to restore anyone back to fellowship with Him. Yet, He does so because He wants to. It is His choice, and not because of anything we have to offer.
So the question is, "is it time?". Time? Time for what? Is it time to slumber? Is it time to be drunken? Is it time to build our own house? Is it time to collect toilet paper in the midst of such a worldwide crisis?
Please make no mistake. If anyone needs TP, they should get it. But while the world is in panic and uncertainty, remember, we are not of the world. We are in the world, living, breathing, physically susceptible to the same diseases as anyone else (just as the rain falls on the just and the unjust), but we have an expected, a hope and a future promised by the LORD, our God through another Prophet, Jeremiah (Jer 29:3), through faith in God in and through our Lord, Jesus Christ.
I'd like to exhort you to pray fervently, not just for safety, not just for help either, but that the Living God of all eternity would empower us to be His light to shine the Love and Salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ. That we might be an instrument through which He would open the eyes of the lost to see His goodness and glory, such that they too might come to know and accept that wonderful, marvelous love of our Savior God!
I do believe it is time.
Yet, if this too shall pass, consider your ways, because it will still be time to shine the saving light of Christ, that the lost might be saved, just like you were once upon a time!