Article: Prioritize God before anything else! | Babu George
“Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your finished houses, and shall this House lie waste?” (Hag 1:3-4)
Priority plays a vital role in our lives. In other words, life revolves around our priorities. The meaning of priority varies from individual to individual based on their perspectives. Being Christians, we need to have God’s wisdom to discern the priority of our lives. If our priority is in making money, then our objective would turn towards making money by any means. More or less, our prioritize shape our behaviour and attitude to an extent. It can be a catalyst to transform our lives itself.
The Book of Haggai gives an in-depth insight into the law of priorities. God’s people were in exile for 70 years in Babylon and returned to their homeland while the Persian Kingdom emerged as the supreme power over Babylon. God sent His people back to their homeland with a vision of rebuilding God’s temple which was demolished by the enemies. But God’s people removed God as their first priority and started establishing themselves in their homeland. They moved around the rubble of the temple to make money but did not give heed to their real priority. There was neither worship nor prayer in the land as all were busy with their own business. They said to themselves, “The time has not yet come for the Lord’s house to be re-built” (Haggai 1:2). Procrastinating priority is a danger in our Christian lives where the devil tempts us not to do the will of God and we also find comfort in spiritual lethargy. In this context, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai, “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your panelled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” (Verse 1:3). Being a catalyst, Haggai encouraged people to reconsider their ways and reinstate the vision which was given by God and restore the misplaced priorities of their lives.
I’m reminded of the story of a girl who approached her father looking for something to do while he was working on a sermon for the coming Sunday service. In an attempt to quickly get back to his preparation, he took a picture of a world map that was on his desk, tore them into pieces and said, ― “Abby, why don’t you try to put the world back together again.” As she went off to work on the puzzle, her father assumed that it would keep her busy for the next couple of hours. But to his surprise, that little girl came back with the puzzle all done! The father, shocked by this, asked his daughter, “Abby, how did you manage to figure it all out so fast?” The little girl turned the map over and said, “Daddy, there is a picture of Jesus on the other side. I figured, if I could put Jesus together, the world too would fall in place.”
Just like the girl did, if we decide to focus on Jesus in our lives, I assure you, everything else will automatically fall in its rightful place. Living in a fast paced world with endless distractions, teachings and self-help resources around, we fail to find time to focus on Jesus. We end up spending a lifetime trying to put the world around us together and in turn end up missing the way drawn out by Christ. This is exactly what Prophet Haggai too witnessed with the people of Israel.The nation of Israel could have re-established themselves a long time ago, but as the book of Haggai points out, it took them several years before they could get their priorities in order.
In short, the success of our life always depends on our priorities. Let us ask God to give us His discernment for choosing the right priorities in our lives. Let’s choose to seek the face of GOD always, and place him at the centre of our lives, keeping aside all other priorities which distract us along the way.
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