Too Busy for God?

This Minor Prophet Describes the Major Consequences

Michael Zigarelli

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One of the great pleasures of my life is being a dad. Interestingly, though, I never really wanted to be a dad. Never had any intention of it. Then one day, three years into my marriage, my wife blindsided me: "Hey, Mr. Exegete. Doesn't this Book say 'you will be fruitful and multiply?'"

I guess she had a point. How can you argue with Genesis? But I figured that I could still get away with having only one child since, technically, one times one still constitutes multiplication. God had a different kind of math in mind, though. And so did my wife. So currently I have one times four kids, ages three through eight. After the most recent child was born, I was adamant that we name him "Omega."

But they're the cutest little things, if I do say so myself. Every week after Sunday school, for instance, I ask them about what they learned. In recent weeks, the conversation has gone like this:

"What'd you learn about in Sunday school today?"

"Jesus."

"Yeah?" I say, probing for more than two syllables. "And what did Jesus do?"

"He blew a horn and the walls fell down!" I see …

A week passes and I ask again: "What'd you learn about in Sunday school today?"

"Jesus."

"Yeah? And what did Jesus do?"

"Jesus told a BIG LIE!"

Oh, really? Must be that new-and-improved version of Scripture I've heard so much about.

A week passes and I ask again: "What'd you learn about in Sunday school today?"

"David and the big, bad giant."

Ah, good. Something new. "Yeah?" I say. "Do you remember the big, bad giant's name?"

"His name was … Jesus!"

That's classic stuff, isn't it? And 100 percent true. I suspect I may have to find myself a new church.

Well, as you can imagine, like most people, I'm pretty busy in light of the work and family responsibilities. I hadn't given too much thought to the consequences of that lifestyle until awhile back when something was published with my name and title on it. It was supposed to read: "Michael Zigarelli, Associate Professor of Business." Instead, there was a typo so that it read: "Michael Zigarelli, Associate Professor of Busyness."

I chuckled at the typo. I got a kick out of it … for about ten seconds. Then it hit me. Most weeks, that typo would be more accurate than my business card! That epiphany sent me back to the Scriptures for some guidance—guidance beyond the comfortable, well-worn passages cautioning us not to hurry through life. What I found was, for me, quite revelatory. I share it with you here in the hopes that you won't make as many mistakes as I did before God gave me this insight.

Without going into detail about how I landed in this dusty part of my Bible, I found tremendous wisdom from a prophet named Haggai. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Haggai told the people of Israel about the fruit of their busyness, about how it inhibited their relationship with God, and about how a weak relationship with God was undermining their life satisfaction. A timeless, cut-to-the-chase message if ever there was one. But lat me back up for a moment and offer some context.

Haggai was a post-exillic prophet. That is, he taught and wrote after the Babylonian exile. After many of the Israelites returned from captivity in about 538 B.C., they began rebuilding the temple that was destroyed decades earlier. But as of 520 B.C., when Haggai enters the scene, the temple still lies in ruins.

This is not a trivial matter since the temple wasn't just any building. And it wasn't just a place of worship and sacrifice. In Old Testament times, the temple was first and foremost a place for God to dwell among His people. He didn't dwell in the hearts of believers, as he does in the New Covenant. For God to be among and in relationship with His chosen, there needed to be a temple.

Consider, then, what is implied by a temple lying in ruins. Relationship with God is not a priority for these people. It's not even on the radar screen. Why is that? Verse 2 of Haggai 1 gets us started on understanding this:

This is what the LORD Almighty says: "These people say, 'The time has not yet come for the Lord's house to be built.'"

Uh-oh. Hold on. "The time has not yet come"? It's been well over a decade, people. What's the problem? Militant opposition like Nehemiah faced? At first, but not for this long. Not enough building materials? As we'll see in a second, that wasn't it. Maybe the architect's still back in Babylon. Nice try. Verses 3 and 4 tell us what the real problem is:

Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: "Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?"

"Paneled houses"? At the time, a paneled house was an extravagantly built house. Something that required a lot of time and effort to build. Something with multiple rooms, modeled in cedar. Something that takes significant resources to build and that one cares for meticulously. Apparently, these folks had been busy doing things that have worldly value rather than doing something about which God cared. And God, through Haggai, strikingly called their attention to it: "Is it time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains in ruin?"

That caused me to stop and think: what am I so busy doing? What are my priorities? Do they align with God's priorities? Some do, but where does relationship with God fall on that priority list? I confess that this was not a comfortable question.

Let me ask it of you anyway, because it's an important question. How's your relationship with God these days? What's your "temple" look like? Have you built it? Do you attend to it? Are you taking the time to maintain it? Or has your schedule relegated the development of your relationship with God to perpetual back-burner status? Is it a project that you're always intending to get to, but for various reasons, you never quite get there?

If your temple is lying in ruins—if God is regularly crowded-out of your life, like He was for the Israelites—then these consequences, described in verses 5, 6 and 9, will probably resonate with you:

Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it. … You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" declares the LORD Almighty. "Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house."

Do those outcomes sound familiar? Have you experienced this in your own life? Has all your busyness brought you real life satisfaction, or has it brought you something that's closer to the opposite? Have you reaped commensurate to what you've sown? Has all of that time and effort exhausting yourself brought you the quality of life God wants to give you? Or is your experience closer to: "You plant much but harvest little … You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it."

Measure it this way. How often do you get to the end of the day, fall into bed and say: "What did I do today? I was going full throttle all day, but what did I do?" Or measure it this way: How often do you achieve some goal, large or small, only to ask yourself: "Is that all there is? Isn't there something more? Why don't I feel satisfied?"

You see, living a life that was too cluttered to spend time with God only brought the people of Israel dissatisfaction and discontentment. That's because, as some people learn too late, a life without God is ultimately an unsatisfying life.

If you're a busy person who's still finding yourself to be restless, dissatisfied, or frustrated with a feeling of purposelessness, perhaps it's time to examine at that temple of yours. I'd submit to you that rebuilding it (i.e., spending time with God every day) is a better pathway than is busyness to satisfying all of your responsibilities—and to satisfying them with real excellence. It's a better pathway to success in leadership. A better pathway to success as a spouse or a parent. A better pathway to a meaningful career and a God-honoring legacy.

And one other thing: it's a better pathway to enduring life satisfaction, to finally filling that void inside of you. Running around to accomplish a lot of things is not the answer. Those things can't fill what theologians have called a "God-shaped void." There's one and only one thing that fills a God shaped void.

Have you been working hard for years, accomplishing a lot, only to ask the questions: "Why am I not satisfied? Why do I feel like I've planted much but harvested little?" Have you wondered: "What more can I do to be happy? What's missing here?" Perhaps what's missing is quality time with God. Perhaps your personal temple needs to be rebuilt. Perhaps busyness and over-commitment have prevented you from doing the things God says should be a permanent part of your schedule—spending time with God and making a priority to grow in the knowledge and love of Him. And maybe that's why so many of us have yet to experience that inner peace, fulfillment, and contentment we long for in life.

Well, what's the corrective? There's a lot of advice out there on how to rebuild a relationship with God and on how to beat busyness. I'm not going to give you a top ten list, though. Not even a top three list. There's only one thing that seems to work over the long haul for people, so I suspect that it will work for you as well. It's a simple solution: schedule time each day with God. Meaningful, private, non-negotiable time with God everyday.

You schedule everything else in your life that's important to ensure that it gets done, so schedule this as well. And stick to it. Rebuilding your temple—your relationship with God—takes commitment, and it takes time each day. There's truly no substitute for it.

Let me close this by offering you both a challenge and some encouragement. Back in Haggai 1, we learn about the people's response to God's call. Verse 12 says:

Then Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the high priest and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the message of the prophet Haggai.

They obeyed God and rebuilt the temple. They threw off the idol of busyness and again invited God to dwell among them. They rolled up their sleeves and got to work, finally fixing their eyes on God.

They didn't do it immediately, though. The end of Haggai 1 tells us that they responded twenty-four days after Haggai delivered God's message. Twenty-four days! I'd like to challenge you to do better. I'd like to challenge you to get a personal building program together and running well in fewer than twenty-four days. Psychologists tell us that it takes about three weeks to really develop a habit. Well, that fits the timetable perfectly.

If you want to be a God-centered person and you desire real, God-defined success in every area of life—and if you want personal fulfillment and genuine life satisfaction as an added bonus—then get yourself on a regular schedule with God. Pray, sing, read His Word, or just to be still and listen. But schedule the time.

And one last thing: please don't think that what you've done is unforgivable, that you're somehow unworthy of relationship with God. Don't think you've been too neglectful for too long. Look at God's response to His children in verse 13:

Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, gave this message of the Lord to the people: "I am with you," declares the Lord.

"I am with you."

Has God been good to you? Has He done wonderful things in your life, delivering you like He delivered His people from Babylon? And in spite of that, have you neglected that temple? Been too busy to really invite God into your daily life? If that's the case, know something: He's not mad at you for it. He's not unwilling to allow you to try again. That's the biggest lie in Satan's arsenal! God loves you well beyond the love you've ever had for anyone or felt from anyone. Beyond any love you could ever fathom. And He's calling you back into a fuller relationship with Him this very day. God assures you, as He assured His people through Haggai, that no matter what has happened and no matter how long it has been—even if it's been fifteen years since you had an active and growing relationship with God—"It's never too late to rebuild that temple of relationship with Me, for I am with you."

Michael Zigarelli is an Associate Professor of Management at Messiah College and the editor of Christianity9to5.org