October 13 It’s About Priorities

Finish your outdoor work and get your field ready. After that, build your house. ~Proverbs 24:27

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, (My House), remains a ruin?” Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much but have 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 the 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 his 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 oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.” ~Haggai 1:3-11

So, it’s all important! There’s building a home so there is a roof over our heads. There’s planting crops so we have food to eat. There’s finding a job so that we can afford life. There’s building a church for gathering and worshiping. There’s providing audio visual for attenders and for those on line. There’s seeking outreach opportunities. There’s reaching out to shut ins. There’s paying the bills. There’s personal quiet time, writing a sermon, staying connected in the community, responding to emails, and on and on it goes. Questions, questions, what comes first?

There’s a great ministry illustration that I’ve used in the past on this topic. I will take a big, wide mouthed, empty jar and tell everyone, this represents time. Then, I fill the jar with big rocks, and I will ask the audience, or congregation, “Is this jar full?” The answer usually comes back, “Yes.” I’ll respond, “It’s true there is no room for another big rock But the answers is, Nope.” Then I proceed to pour pebbles in, jiggling the jar to help the pebbles settle around the bigger rocks. Then, I will ask again, “Is this full?” Now the answer comes back a little more doubtfully, “Yes.”

Again, I will say, “Nope.” I pour in sand, and it sifts between rocks and pebbles to fill all the remaining spaces. Quite a lot goes in before the sand is level with the top of the jar. I’ll ask again, “Well, is it full now?” Now there is usually some laughter, as the congregation wonders how I could possibly put in more than I already have. But water fits in. Water even lubricates the sand, so it flows and packs down more. When I am done. The water is at the top edge of the jar, but the sand that was there has settled just a little deeper in. That’s when I finally declare, “Now, it’s full!” It usually gets a laugh.

Next I explain that the big rocks represent the most important things. The water represents the least important things. The jar can be filled with just water. But the water can take up all the space leaving no room for the big rocks. Drop a rock in anyway and you make a mess. The point of the illustration is that, when it comes to time, we need to put the big rocks in first. Then the next most important and so on down to the least important. That’s the only way to make room for some of everything.

Of course, the question remains, what are the big rocks? There seems to be three main rocks mentioned in our passages for today: housing, provision and the Spiritual connection. Solomon is recommending, first plant your crops, then work on your house. That makes sense. Once the crops are planted, they can do the growing on their own. Aside from a little weeding, there isn’t much more to do. Planting first assures food through the Winter.

In the meantime, while you are waiting for the harvest, occupy yourself with building your home and a place for storage for those crops. Okay, that makes sense. But the people that Haggai was speaking to got in trouble for working on their houses resulting in having those crops blown away! What went wrong? Let me explain with a little back story on the situation.

We’ve mentioned many times the people of Israel who were sent into exile for many reasons, most of all disobeying God, not worshiping Him and not following is commands. He had warned them way back in Deuteronomy that if they fell away, they would be punished, and they were. They were removed from their homeland and forced to live in exile in hostile Babylon. After the promised 70 years, many were allowed to return and begin rebuilding again.

The first thing that they did when they returned was begin to build the temple by laying the foundation. Then, as with the wall, that Nehemiah helped to rebuild, the people began to face opposition. They became discouraged and decided to give up on the new temple and take care of themselves instead. They left the foundation exposed and decided to plant crops and build their own homes.

They didn’t feel like dealing with the opposition. They had lived for 70 years without a center of worship and they felt they could keep doing so. So, while their own homes began looking really nice, the temple was ignored. God took away those crops that they had planted, probably first to get their attention. They were ignoring the biggest rock of all, their spiritual lives.

That mattered to God. He hadn’t brought them home so that He could be ignored again, so He sent Haggai to explain it. Zachariah had visions to further remind them of the importance of finishing a place for them to worship and then Ezra returned with the articles that the Babylonians had stolen, because there was finally a place for the articles for worship to be placed.

I think that today, many people think that they will get around to attending to their spiritual lives better later. Now is the time for attending to building the savings account, paying off the mortgage, maybe getting that second home, or something else. What God was trying to get through to His people through Haggai, is that the spiritual component needs to be attended to alongside meeting our personal needs. Yes, have a home, yes, provide for your family, but attend to the spiritual things right along with it. It is a big rock that needs to be in place along with the other two.

As we grow older, we will learn that keeping our eye on the spiritual, will help us when one of the other two areas of life are threatened or become difficult to bear. Storms will come. But knowing how attentive God is to us is a tremendous blessing through the rough times. Those who neglect the spiritual, so that it is treated as a pebble in size, miss the blessing of knowing that. But they could have known it if it had been a major part of their priorities all along.

This is what the Lord almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. May our spiritual lives be treated like the big rock it really is, laid on a solid foundation of God’s Word to provide a shelter in our time of storm.

Prayer: Father, You are my top priority! Really! I want to act like that. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is still so weak sometimes. Help me Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Song: A Shelter in a Time of Storm