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“A man may be occupied in the things of God and
yet not be occupied with God Himself. ”

— A.W. Tozer

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Consider Your Ways: The Difference Between Being Busy and Being Fruitful

One of the strangest feelings in life is being busy yet feeling unproductive.

We work hard, carry responsibility, build, produce, serve. Yet beneath all the movement, there can be this sense that something important is missing.

The prophet Haggai gives language to this tension. Speaking on behalf of God he says,

You have sown much, and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but never have your fill. You clothe yourself, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. (1 v. 6)

Yikes. No thank you.

That’s a picture of exhaustion without fulfillment. Activity without impact. A life that feels spent faster than it can be replenished.

Why God Says, “Consider Your Ways”

So how do we not live that like?

Multiple times in this chapter, God repeats these words: “Consider your ways.”

God’s diagnosis wasn’t that they were lazy. It was that they were misaligned. The center of their faith—the temple, the place where God dwelt among His people—had been left in ruins while everything else got their attention.

In the New Testament, Paul, however, reframes the temple’s location, placing it in us. You and I are God’s temple; our interior life is where the Spirit dwells.

Which means it’s possible to become highly attentive to everything external while remaining disconnected internally—to manage our schedules, careers, responsibilities, and image while neglecting what God is doing within us.

No wonder life can start to feel thin, and we’re left feeling scattered, depleted, and unable to enjoy what we’re working so hard to sustain.

Returning to the Center of Your Life

When God tells us to, “Consider your ways,” He’s not condemning or shaming us. He’s telling us to pause and tend to the center of our lives.

Respond

There’s a beautiful promise later in Haggai. Once the foundation of the temple is laid—once God’s house is honored—goodness and meaningful growth follow (2:18–19). In other words, when what’s central becomes central again, life flourishes from the inside out.

This week, when it feels like life is slipping through your fingers, take a moment to consider your ways. Before we just try harder or do better, let’s take a deep breath and re-surrender the center of our lives to the Spirit’s work.

Jesus promised that rivers of living (healing) water would flow from within, so may the Spirit do in a moment what would’ve taken months or years for us to accomplish in our own strength.

Closing Prayer

Father,
Help me to consider my ways before You.
Show me where I am distracted, hurried, or consumed by lesser things.
Forgive me for the ways I’ve neglected what You’re building within me.
Teach me to tend to Your presence and work in my life
with greater attention and care.
Restore what feels empty, scattered, or depleted in me.
May Your living water flow from my heart,
so that true fruitfulness can grow in its time.
I want my life to be a dwelling place for You.
In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Praying with you,

Addison

P.S. If you’re new to these prayer guides and don’t have the Words with God book and/or 40-day prayer journal, those are great resources for living prayerfully.