Fourteen years. That's a long time for a building site to go untouched. We have a planned shopping mall right in the middle of our town that was started before the Celtic Tiger ran off in fear about eight years ago. It is a horrible eyesore with graffiti and rubbish and grass and weeds and all kinds of filth. It is a blight on out town and three massive cranes mar our town outline because it was cheaper to just store them here than to move them.
But the Temple foundations had lain untouched for fourteen years. I can’t imagine what our abandoned mall site will look like in 2022. It must have been as discouraging for them, more so because that was God’s work. There have been all kinds of talks about what to do, but still it sits there getting worse and worse.
Just like Naas, Jerusalem needed some kind of motivation – but they got it. God sent two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, to preach to them about getting back to work. Haggai mostly preached about getting priorities right and Zechariah mostly preached about the importance of the Temple for the future of the Jewish people and the preparation for Messiah.
And it worked. When Haggai preached everyone got busy and went back to work and got the Temple built. They famously ‘considered their ways’ and got moving.
I don’t suspect that God is going to send a Haggai and a Zechariah to tell Naas to get busy and finish that shopping mall. I am however concerned that you and I need the same challenge when it comes to dealing with priorities in our lives. Where on our list of priorities is living a life that pleases God? Maybe at some point serving God was number one but we have ‘left our first love.’ Maybe all kinds of rubbish has collected in our lives that we need to deal with.
Maybe, as Haggai said, we need to consider our own ways and get back to the work of building our lives for the glory of God.
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