Whose Kingdom?

This weekend the teaching at church revolved around Haggai 1, which concerns the rebuilding of the Second Temple after the return of the Jews to Jerusalem.  God chastens His people for not working on his kingdom first:

"This people says "The time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built."  Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses and this temple to lie in ruins.  Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider your ways!" (Haggai 1:2-4).

Consider your ways.  The Lord then reminds the people of all that they have tried to do to prosper yet have failed at because they did not put the Lord first.  They did not build His kingdom.

Am I building God's kingdom?  This is the question I find myself confronted with in the middle of my life.  I am busier than I have ever been - so busy, in fact, that I am drowning in both my personal and professional life.  But am I busy building my own kingdom or God's?

It is not meant as an idle question.  I feel like I am doing more than ever yet I am accomplishing less than ever and yet I am not seeing the rewards (not all monetary) that one would expect.  Effort is not translating into progress.  I almost feel trapped in a wheel I cannot remove myself from.

What is the Lord's prescription for His people of Haggai's time?  "'Go up to the mountains and bring wood and build my temple, that I may take pleasure in it and be glorified', says the LORD (Haggai 1:8)".  Stop what you are doing.  Stop building your little empires and your small dreams and put me first in what I ask, He says. Glorify Me, make Me the center of your life, and see how I will act.

That is a hard prescription to follow, at least for me, trapped in the busyness of a life that seems only to move faster and faster.  But, to follow the phrase, if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. 

Whose kingdom am I building anyway?