Building the Lord's House

Solomon took 7 years to build the Lord's house while for his own palace, Solomon took 13 years, almost double the time. Scholars and preachers have noted that could be an indication of Solomon's degree of devotion to the Lord that he cared more for his own house than the Lord's Temple. While all these 27 years, I have focused on building the Lord's house and for the first 14 years as a pastor, I owned no house but stayed from one place to another until 2007 that I moved into my own house. Shortly thereafter, I moved on to NZ (Feb-May 2008) and then to Singapore in June 2008. I have not lived in my house for more than a year until I came down from Ranau to KK on 31st January 2019.

It is only when I have resigned from my current pastorate and using up my annual leave that I began to see what needed to be done in my house. As the book of Ecclesiastes says, "a lazy person who neglects his house will have its roof leaking". It is not out of laziness or tardiness but when you are away in Ranau, though travelling back almost every weekend, it is not possible to think much about one's own house. Now I have plenty of time. It is the third week that the contractor works on my house, basically re-doing the flooring and re-tiling of my dining room plus a fresh layer of paint for the walls of the dining place. It is good that the contractor will finish today or tomorrow just before Christmas. Other bits and pieces and re-painting I might do myself, just to learn some new skill or at least try to make myself useful around the house. I can only praise God for His goodness. When I bought some paint this morning, one contractor told me that the price of iron had doubled in the last couple of months. It's now RM5,000 per ton instead of RM2K plus few months back. Housing and renovation costs will be much dearer entering the New Year. Praise God for a dwelling place. I have nothing and desired nothing but He said to me on Boxing Day 2005, "Since it is in your heart to build My House, I will build you a house" (2 Samuel 7). God's promises never fail and in Christ, all God's promises are Yes and Amen. All glory be unto His Name!