Thursday, March 21, 2019

Gerbil Wheel Christians

"Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: "Consider your ways!
You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you do not have enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes.
Thus says the Lord of hosts: "Consider your ways!"
Haggai 1:5-7 (NKJV)

Have you ever seen a pet gerbil and the little wheel that people have for the gerbil to run on?  The wheel is there for the gerbil to use and supposedly get some exercise.  The gerbil can get on that wheel whenever they like and run, and run, and run.  The only thing is, even though the gerbil is doing a lot of running, they are not going anywhere.  There is action taking place, the gerbil is moving their legs, and energy is being used, but nothing is really happening.  And even though this could happen day, after day, after day, the gerbil will still get on the wheel and run some more.

Even though no one really has a giant human wheel that they run on like the gerbil wheel, there are a lot of people, including Christians, who are doing the same thing as the gerbil.  These people have a lot of activity going on, they are busy, and they are using a lot of energy but they are going nowhere in their life.  In the case of a Christian, they go to church, they even read their Bible and pray, but their spiritual life is stagnant.  One reason for this is the same thing that God spoke to Israel through Haggai about, that Israel had been spending time building things in their own life without building what God desired. 

Haggai compared the lives of these people of Israel to a person who did a lot of things that brought no real results, all because their priorities were out of order.  In the same way today, some believers have seemingly been doing all the right things but seeing no real results because their first priority is always what they want and not what God wants.  We can have all the right activity, but will not get the right results if we have the wrong priorities.  To really move forward in life, we not only have to do the right things but we must be sure that what we are doing is a part of God's plan for our life and not just our own goals and desires.

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