July 22, 2022

The Almost Daily will be on Summer Vacation until August 8th. But fear not! You will receive a devotional each Monday through Friday from the excellent Mockingbird Devotional entitled Daily Grace. Enjoy! - Paul Walker

Is it a time for you yourselves to live in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? ... [T]hus says the LORD of hosts: Consider how you have fared. You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe your- selves, but no one is warm; and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes. (Haggai 1:4-6)

Maybe you remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. He imagined a layered pyramid where the needs for a good life were ranked, bottom to top, from most to least essential. At the bottom were physiological needs: water, food, and warmth. In the middle were safety, security, and meaningful relationships. At the top was “self-actualization” and the freedom to be creative.

When Haggai arrives on the scene, the people of Israel are a long way from self-actualization. The bedraggled community had returned to their homeland after seventy years of captivity in Babylon. Water, food, warmth, wages: The community was working hard to acquire these basic needs and was not making progress. God intervened through Haggai, telling the people their priorities were all wrong. They were building nice, paneled houses while the temple lay in ruins from its destruction seventy years prior. The people had forgotten to make God a priority.

God does something bold with Maslow’s hierarchy: He reveals himself as the essential need, the primary necessity required for life. As Jesus will later teach, “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:33). Our food, our safety, our clothing, our work... As important as these are, the foundational level of our spiritual pyramid is God himself. Everything else comes second.

What do you need right now? Ask God for it. Thank him for the other ways he’s provided already. After acknowledging his providence and asking for help, wait and see how everything plays out. Perhaps you’ll find, like the Israelites of Haggai’s day, that God is true to his word. That he is ready to provide, and is worthy of the priority he claims.

[Bryan Jarrell, Daily Grace - Mockingbird Devotional Vol. 2]