Haggai 1:1-6. The beginning of the book of Haggai, prophet to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, and Joshua, the high priest. God tells Haggai to say to these men that the time has come to rebuild the house of the Lord, for they are dwelling in panelled houses while God's house sits in ruins. "Consider how you have fared. You have sown much and harvested little; you eat but you never have enough; you drink but you never have your fill.... "

I have had this reading before and I journaled about it being time for the faithful to start rebuilding God's Church, as we have been too confortable for too long. Today I reading this a bit more personally, as a call for me to look for areas in my life where I may not be putting God first. I need to consider, in every part of my life, how have I fared? Am I sowing much but harvesting little? In some areas of my life, yes, I am, and those areas to be reoriented.

An example - earlier this year I started thinking that I should move my 401(k) and Roth IRA funds to Catholic oriented mutual funds, and out of the index funds they were in. I spoke with a friend about this and she thought I had enough to do at the time and that the working out and this was too much to take on right now. I told myself she was right, and she was in a way, I was very busy and didn't have time to start a rollover of my retirement accounts. So I just let everything be, but it kept nagging me. I was thinking I could at least get my money out of the index funds and into money market accounts at my existing investment companies, thus not unwittingly supporting any corrupt corporations. But if I did that when I thought of it, my 2022 losses in the market would be "locked in," so I held off, hoping that the market would rebound a bit and I could do it then. Then the Fed raised rates and the market crashed again.

That day, I realized God was hitting me over the head! I logged into my accounts and put everything into money markets, after seeing that my personal rate of return for this year was almost negative 17%! If I had listened earlier I would have saved myself a lot of loss. But so be it, I am a slow learner and a slow listener. At least now I am not supporting evil and I (hopefully) will not lose any more money.

I really needed to "consider how I have fared." I wasn't taking the time to do so, in an area of my life where I wasn't putting God first, and so I suffered quite a loss. I was sowing much (that is, investing) but harvesting little (I lost 17% of my money!). Now I have to look for other areas of my life where this may be happening - all I have to do is consider how I am faring there!