A God who Disciplines Us and Withholds Blessings (1:9-11)
9 You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? declares the LORD of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.
10 Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce.
11 And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors.”
The God of Scripture is not the god of Disney or Daniel Tiger—a god who is only nice and only concerned with meeting our emotional needs. The God of Scripture is holy. The God who Scripture is real. He is just and powerful and mighty. He disciplines His people and at times withholds blessings from them due to their disobedience.
We see this truth in Haggai 1:9-11. Because the people have refused to rebuild the temple—a good work they were supposed to carry out but have failed to do for 15 years—God has withheld blessings from them. Their self-centered interests have not resulted in the prosperity they hoped for (1:6, 9-10). The reason is given in 1:9: “Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house.” Due to this, God says, “I have called for a drought” (1:11). Note the first-person pronoun.
This is the God whom we ought to revere, fear, and be humbled before. It is a God who at times withholds blessings and brings hardship into our lives. As James 4:3 says, ‘You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.’ And, as seen in 1 Cor 11:27-32, God at times even allows his people to be weak, sick or die as an act of discipline.
We ought to ask ourselves, ‘Am I doing the work God is call me to do?’ We too must ‘consider our ways’ (Haggai 1:5,7). If we refuse to do the good works God calls us to, then we should expect Him to discipline us in His holy and wise way. But we must remember that God is kind even in midst of such discipline—He disciplines those He loves.
Praise God who disciplines His people! Praise God who cares enough for us to even without material and spiritual blessings for His people when they are wayward or willfully disobedient.
