I Am With You

When the people of Judah came back from exile and began to rebuild the temple, the old men who remembered Solomon's temple could see that this one was much smaller. Haggai records God asking the question for them, without arguing with it: "Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?"

That is the right place to start, because the people felt it themselves. Anyone who had seen the first temple was now looking at a building that could not compare with it, put up by a few returned exiles who were still ruled by the Persian empire. So it was natural to think the work was not worth doing well. Maybe the work in front of you is smaller than the work you once imagined: a class of four, a parent who no longer knows your name, a ministry that has not grown in six years.

Watch what God never says to them. He does not tell them the building is secretly impressive. He does not talk about their potential or make the numbers look better. He says "be strong" three times: once to Zerubbabel the governor, once to Joshua the high priest, and once to "all ye people of the land." Then He says "work." And the reason He gives is not a prediction of how it will turn out. It is this: "for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts." Five verses later He does promise, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former." But that promise looked to a future none of those builders lived to see. What He gave them to work with that day was Himself.

So you are free to do the small work without making it prove its worth first: the four people, the visit, the meal. Nobody is asking you to pretend it is bigger than it is. You are being offered company in it. The LORD of hosts is with you in the small work, and He has never thought a small work was beneath Him.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 80 is Meditate (Joshua 1:8).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna