One of Aesop’s most famous fables is “The Ants & the Grasshopper”:
One bright day in late autumn a family of Ants were bustling about in the warm sunshine, drying out the grain they had stored up during the summer, when a starving Grasshopper, his fiddle under his arm, came up and humbly begged for a bite to eat.
"What!" cried the Ants in surprise, "haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What in the world were you doing all last summer?"
"I didn't have time to store up any food," whined the Grasshopper; "I was so busy making music that before I knew it the summer was gone."
The Ants shrugged their shoulders in disgust.
"Making music, were you?" they cried. "Very well; now dance!" And they turned their backs on the Grasshopper and went on with their work.
While the ants may have been lacking in charity, one thing they got right was doing things in the proper order- important things like preparing for winter first, then non-important things like dancing later. As we are currently buried under a foot of ice and snow, there’s a lesson on preparedness for everyone in there, but I thought with this blog we could think about priorities. We are in the new year and most of us have probably made our resolutions for 2025. Lose some of the weight we put on between Thanksgiving and Christmas and get back into shape. Put money aside in savings or pay debt down. Learn a foreign language, learn to play an instrument, spend more time with the people we love, travel to a new place, start a new career, start a new relationship, etc. etc. Some of us may have even made spiritual resolutions: read the Bible more, spend more time in prayer and worship, lead someone to Christ, or just try and exhibit more love and grace to those around us. For my part, I typically have a mix of “worldly” and spiritual resolutions each year. Invariably, though, when December 31st of any year rolls around and I look back at the previous year, I will discover that I spent WAY more time on the worldly ones. It’s just a lot more fun doing, well, anything, than it is reading through the book of Numbers. The “me” stuff is more enjoyable than the “God” stuff most of the time.
If you’ve been following FCC’s bible reading plan, recently you read the following verse- “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”[1] One of my goals this year is to spend more time in God’s Word, and since in our December sermons we spent some time in the minor prophets, I’ve been just randomly opening one up and reading through it. Today I was in Haggai and it struck me that this went so well with the Matthew verse, with New Year’s resolutions, with so many things that I have been thinking about in my own life. I’m careful about saying it, but I believe the 1% of the time that I have a really good idea or things match up so well it is the Spirit leading me towards something and in an effort to follow that I thought I would do this blog[2].
If you don’t know much about Haggai, you are in good company as I imagine most folks in the church have no idea what it is about, much less where to find it. It falls under the category of books in the Bible, that when the paster asks you to go there, you hope no one sees you looking it up in the table of contents[3]. It is a short book of 38 verses over two chapters, but it has some real historical value in that it details some of what happened between the fall of Jerusalem and the rebuilding and reforms of Nehemiah[4]. Haggai himself is somewhat a mystery to us. His name suggests he was born on a festival day and there is a chance he had seen the temple before its destruction[5], which would make him at least in his 70’s when the events in the book took place[6]. The message that Haggai brings to the political and religious leaders is a simple one: it is time for God’s people to get their priorities straight. Regarding the temple, God’s question through Haggai is “Is it time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?”[7] After returning from exile, the people had at least laid the foundation of the temple and either rebuilt or restored the altar. But for the next 16 years or so, nothing else had been done. It feels like the Old Testament equivalent of working out hard for the month of January then spending the next 11 months being lazy and sitting on the couch. Furthermore, it is interesting that the passage uses the term “paneled” houses. Jerusalem had been devastated and the exiles who had return had faced a daunting task of rebuilding[8]. They had not only rebuilt their houses, but fancied them up with wainscotting and panels….all while the temple was in disrepair. God’s people had put their wants in front of God’s. Their priorities were wrong and one of the lessons for God’s people, both then and now, is there are consequences to putting what we want first. Nothing was going the way they wanted: harvests were bad, they were unsatisfied and the good things they wanted always seemed just out of reach[9]. In short, because they put what they wanted in front of what God wanted, everything in their lives was out of sorts[10]. Haggai’s message had a powerful effect on the people. Immediately they feared and obeyed God and as a result He “stirred up” their spirits[11]. Within weeks work on the temple began and was possibly completed within 4 years. Putting God’s will first had a powerful effect. Psalm 147, which some people attribute to Haggai says that “He strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your people within you. He grants peace to your borders and satisfies you with the finest of wheat.”[12].
We want the best for ourselves. After all, that’s what resolutions are about: making our lives better. But as we look at our goals for 2025 we should prioritize what God want from us first. That is the only way we will find success and satisfaction. Here at FCC Grayson we are so excited to see what God is going to do in 2025 and excited to experience that with you. If there is any way we can help you in the upcoming year, please reach out and let us know. – FCC Grayson Men’s Ministry
[1] Matthew 6.33. Even if you aren’t following the reading plan, go back and read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chaps 5-7. It is a great way to start the new year.
[2] The other 99% of the time that I do/say/think the wrong thing is all me
[3] Full disclosure: I was so relieved the other day when Pastor Ben told us to look up Nahum in the table of contents before we turned to it as I only had a vague idea of where it was
[4] Not only are the events in it attested to by Ezra (4.24-5.1, 6.14) and Zechariah (1.16), the text of the Cylinder of Cyrus records Cyrus giving exiled communities the chance to return to their homes. For more background see “Haggai”(W. Neil) in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible and “Haggai” (J.E. McFadyen) in The Abingdon Bible Commentary
[5] See 2.3
[6] Between Sept and Dec in 520 B.C.
[7] 1.4
[8] For Biblical accounts of the fall of Jerusalem, see 2 Kings 25; Lamentations 4, 5 & 9; and Jeremiah 52
[9] 1.5&6
[10] 1.9-11
[11] 1.12-14
[12] Psalm 147.13-14
Comments