For best results, read the book of Haggai before reading this blog 🙂
(It's only 2 chapters long)
Haggai 1:5-6
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 purses with holes in it.”
Studying scripture is one of my favorite ways to worship because it has endless reward. It doesn't matter how many times you read a passage- you can ALWAYS learn more. There is always a new lesson to be learned and God can teach every person something different. Recently, my team decided to do a Bible study together on the book of Haggai. After our first discussion, Jack asked our team what stood out to us in the book and what questions we had. Each person had something different stand out to them. For me, it was verses 5 & 6.
My question was… How did they NOT notice? How did they go year after year planting and harvesting little, drinking but not being quenched and eating but not being full and NOT notice? Wouldn't you start to wonder what was going on at some point? Wouldn't you start to think something was wrong?
The problem is, people are adaptable. Not only that, but they adapt really well. I've done it here on the world race. For the past 6 months, my lifestyle and living conditions have been drastically different than I'm used to but in all honesty, I hardly notice anymore. In just 6 months I've been able to adjust to not having the luxuries that I'd been accustomed to for 22 years. Many times I've heard the phrase “Your greatest strength can become your greatest weakness”. I believe this passage is a prime example of that. Obviously, I wasn't there at the time but from what I can tell- these people adapted. The Lord was punishing them for their neglect of His temple but because they had been living in sin for so long, their punishment had become a way of life.
People CAN live without God, they do it all the time, but they can't do it well. There will always be something missing. Without God, you will only be getting fractions of what you desire and fractions of what He wants to give you. I believe adaptation is a struggle for many believers as well. There are countless Christians who don't experience the fullness of their faith because they don't even notice that they're missing it. I know that was me for a long time and in some areas it still is. We live so long in the same sins and the same unhealthy mindsets that we don't even notice them anymore. We spend so much time only experiencing half the joy that we could that we don't even know what COMPLETE joy looks like. We stop thinking about it, we stop caring, we stop noticing but God doesn't.
This is what the Lord Almighty says:
“Give careful thought to your ways.”
