I Want God: How to Love Him With Your Whole Heart and Revive Your SoulSample

Day 2: What Do We Want?

Back around 520 BC, during the reign of King Darius, God sent a message to the Jews through the prophet Haggai. He had noticed that the assignment he gave them fifteen years earlier to finish the temple in Jerusalem had not yet been fulfilled.

In the middle of their building project, they had gotten more and more into their own projects and less and less focused on God’s. So God chose Haggai to confront them.

“Why are you living in luxurious houses while my house lies in ruins? This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Look at what’s happening to you! You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink but are still thirsty. You put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes!” (1:4–6)

Pockets filled with holes. What a word picture! God is basically saying, “Hey, how is doing your own thing going for you? How is that eating a lot, drinking a lot, shopping a lot, making a lot of money thing working out? It’s what you wanted, right?”

That didn’t work out for them, and it’s not working out very well for us either. We are more depressed than we’ve ever been, more reckless than we’ve ever been, less satisfied than we’ve ever been. We have been so busy creating castles for ourselves that we haven’t stopped to notice they aren’t really very beautiful. And then we are surprised when the beauty queen, the rich person, the Hollywood star hates their own life? No one ever has it all when they build it for themselves.

It is time to know what we want. It is time to stop chasing the temporary in place of the eternal. It is time to stop putting wages in our pockets only to have them exit through the holes. It is time to come back to God, beg Him for revival, and start moving forward into the most and best that can be ours.

Reflect:

Are there areas in my life where I've pursued personal ambitions at the expense of God's priorities? How can I refocus on eternal pursuits?

Prayer:

Lord, help me to see where I have been building on my own, and return my gaze to what You have promised and will be faithful to build, to Your glory and my benefit. Amen.