Life bombards us with pressures and tasks from all directions. Call this person. Make this appointment. Take the dog to the vet. Finish this project today. Attend this meeting. Everyone wants something from us – family, friends, employer. With little time and energy, we find ourselves racing through life trying to attend to all of the immediate urgencies and mini emergencies. Unfortunately, the most important things are often neglected. The problem is not the volume of our to-dos or lack of scheduling skills. Rather, our problem is simply with what we value, what we deem truly important to us.
A dime held at arm’s length is small. It’s minimal value as money is apparent from that perspective. But if we hold it close to our eye, even a tiny dime is big enough to limit our vision of God’s greater blessings.*
Today’s Scripture reading is from Haggai 1:2-11.
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, “The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.” Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.“
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the Lord Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the olive oil and everything else the ground produces, on people and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
The people of God had neglected the rebuilding of the Lord’s house, consumed instead with their own personal pursuits and material comforts. The prophet Haggai, inspired by the word of the Lord, delivered a poignant message challenging them to evaluate the consequences of their misplaced priorities.
Haggai’s call to the Lord’s people challenges us today to reexamine our own lives. Are we, like the people in Haggai’s time, preoccupied with our own personal ambitions while neglecting the spiritual foundation that sustains us? The Lord’s question echoes through the ages: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin? (v.4).
On two occasions in the Lord’s brief warning to the people, He says, “Give careful thought to your ways.”
As we give careful thought to our ways, are we climbing the mountain to bring down timber for God’s house? Or are we using it to build our own?
* Commentary – David Jeremiah
Former Blackout Artist 