February 28, 2016

Realign Your Priorities

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.” -- Haggai 1:5-6

What do you want? What are you coveting right now? Oh, come on! You know you do. Everybody wants something they don’t currently have.

Why is that? Why are we never happy with what we have? Why is it never enough? Why are we never enough?

Oh, there you go. Why are we never enough? That’s the question we need to answer. Why are we trying to make ourselves happy, satisfied, appear more affluent? Why are we trying to fill ourselves up with things? All it does is put us deeper into debt and cause us to move on to something else that we “need.”

And it doesn’t have to be a thing. It could be a someone. Have you ever met a person who just knew they would be happy if they were married, had a child, were divorced, had a grandchild? The list could go on and on. They have tied their happiness to someone else.

We do the same thing when we are young. We’ll be so happy when we are a teenager. Life will be great when we get our driver’s license and a car. We can’t wait until college and then we can’t wait until we’ve graduated and have a “real” job. And on and on it goes. One day we’ll be satisfied but we really never will be.

We are seeking our satisfaction, our happiness, our status, in others and in things. Not God. Except that God is the only One who can ever satisfy us. He is the only One who can ever make us happy. And status with Him, well, that is eternal life.

God warned the Israelites. They were so focused on themselves that they neglected God’s temple, which lay in ruins. It’s like us focusing on ourselves rather than putting God first. Who are His workers? We don’t tithe because we can’t afford to give to God when we’re trying to keep and add to all our stuff. We don’t have time to volunteer and help others because we’re too busy working and lounging in front of those big televisions. Besides, we sure wouldn’t want to get our hands dirty. That wouldn’t look good. Maybe we could just write a check after all?

We will never fill ourselves up with things because we will never have enough. We will never truly be happy if we are depending on the actions, or inactions, of others to do it for us.

Focus on God. Put Him first. That’s right. Realign your priorities. You might have a few less things but you’ll have a full heart and more than enough to satisfy all you needs. And as a bonus: You won’t even care about all that stuff anymore.