Feeling self-doubt or comparison paralysis today? God's call to 'be strong and work; for I am with you'
'Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do you see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? Yet now be strong...be strong...be strong...saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts'
Haggai 2:3,4
Do you need encouragement today?
Encouragement to continue?
Perhaps you have recently started a new project or you set goals at the beginning of 2026, and you have come to a stop.
Your confidence and enthusiasm is waning.
You look around at what others have achieved or are doing and wonder what you were thinking of.
You start to feel like you are no good, you will never be able to achieve your goals, you will be laughed at and scorned.
Or, the project/goal feels too hard, too far off, impossible and unrealistic - you haven't the skills, the experience, the knowledge, the support....perhaps you should just give up?
I have recently started a new project.
I had prayed and believed I was shown an answer to that prayer - to begin this project. I started with optimism and hope. Trusting that this was of the Lord and He would help me.
And then a little self-doubt started to creep in.
And I listened to it.
Whilst I was no way at the depths of the description above I was starting to experience a few signs of comparison paralysis.
(When we over-compare ourselves and our situations with others resulting in negative effects such as indecision and procrastination).
But then my attention was caught by some Bible words which my husband read out from the Bagster Daily Light one morning:
"Be strong and work; for I am with you saith the LORD of hosts".
Who else was needing such encouragement and why, I wondered ?
- The historical context of this verse
Well, many, many years ago there was a building site.
It was not a routine building site, a new build, a home for eager prospective buyers with bright hopes for the future. There was no fresh ground to be dug or optimism for this to be the best build yet.
No. This building site was a place of ruin and destruction. A place of sad memories, death and history.
And yet, it was the most sacred and honoured place where years earlier God Himself had descended in a cloud, filling a magnificent building with His glory - the original site of what King Solomon had declared would be a 'great' temple for 'great is our God above all gods' (2 Chronicles 2:5).
Preparations for this first building had started when Solomon was only a young prince. Hewed stones, nails made from iron, brass, wood were all prepared in abundance by his father King David. (1 Chronicles 22).
The best and most skilled workmen were employed; master craftsmen in engraving, carpentry and stone cutting.
Cedar, fir, algum and palm trees were all used, overlaid with gold and decorated with precious stones.
There was carved cherubims, sculpted pillars, the beautiful veil of blue, purple, crimson, fine linen and cherubims, the brass alter, gold candlesticks, a great bason supported by sculpted oxen, its rim decorated with lilies
It was a building to honour and worship God, ornate and magnificent.
Seven years were spent in the building of this glorious temple and then over 300 years later it was ransacked of its treasures, destroyed and burnt to the ground.
Although by this time the temple had needed repair at various times, some of its treasures had been stolen or given away, and it had sometimes been used for heathen worship or left neglected it was still described by a prophet of that time as 'holy and beautiful' (Isaiah 64:11).
What a contrast to the desolate scene that was left on its destruction by the enemy Assyrian forces.
***
- Fifteen years previous to this scene
And then, about fifteen years previous to the time at which we now arrive God had spoken to Cyrus, a Persian king, telling him to build Him a house - a temple - in Jerusalem. Cyrus had obeyed, allowing many of the Jews who had been taken into exile to make the approximately 900 miles return back to Judah.
They arrived at Jerusalem laden with silver, gold, goods, animals, offerings, and many of the original gold and silver utensils which had been ransacked from Jerusalem's first temple and placed in the heathen temple in Babylon.
Despite the condition of Jerusalem - the rubble, the broken down walls, the burnt gates, the remains of burnt buildings, the vegetation which would have no doubt grown in their years of absence - enthusiasm for the project and zeal to worship God was evident.
Before they had even laid the first foundation stone of the temple Jeshua (son of Judah's last High Priest) and Zerubbabel (grandson of one of the last Judean Kings) organised the temple alter to be rebuilt so that they could offer morning and evening offerings to God and keep the 'Feast of the Tabernacles'.
Many were the gifts brought to the site of the original temple enabling stone masons and carpenters to be employed and cedar trees to be purchased and transported from Lebanon.
The work started in earnest the year following and we read of the praise, thanksgiving and weeping by the older generation when the foundation stone was laid.
But then due to troublemakers living around that area a later King had been influenced to order that the Jews stop their building work until further notice - a halt which lasted for around 15 years.
***
- The current scene
And then, God spoke to His prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, instructing them to tell the people to consider their ways - to consider why it might be that there was a drought, their crops failing and their finances a struggle? To consider how was it that they were all living in their nicely finished houses and yet God's temple was still a ruin?
As the leaders and people obeyed God's command to start building His temple again Haggai brought them a further message from God telling them that He was with them.
But what is this message only a month later to the leaders by individual name and to all the people, and why was it?
"...be strong, and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts" (Haggai 2:4).
They had only started the building project a month earlier and yet were they becoming discouraged?
'Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do you see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? Yet now be strong...and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts' (Haggai 2:3).
We have already mentioned the weeping of the elderly at the laying of the foundation stone some 15 years earlier - those who remembered what the temple had been like. Those who were so much more acutely aware of the contrast to the ruins all around them.
How easy it might have been for them to feel the hopelessness and hardness of the task before them. How they might have discouraged those that were zealously working on the new temple - "Oh, it will never be the same, nothing can ever replace the first temple, it will be just a shadow of what it was before".
How those younger men, the builders and carpenters might have likewise lamented that they didn't have the abundance of supplies, the master craftsmen, the workers and the finances that were available to King Solomon at the building of the first temple.
How they might have thought that it was much harder for them than the first builders because they had so much rubble to clear away before they could build, so much to do to clear the landscape.
How easy it would have been for them to have all felt so disheartened by the comparison, so overwhelmed with the task that they started to procrastinate, become half-hearted, drifted away or given up.
But, God knew their hearts.
God knew the sadness in the hearts of the elderly. He knew of any self-recriminations of 'if only we hadn't forsaken God and then none of this would have happened.'
God knew how the leaders and all the people of the land felt their weakness and inability for the task, their vulnerability to the enemies surrounding them who might try and stop them again.
And God had a message for all of them - for Zerubbabel, for Joshua, their leaders, and for all the people:
"Be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the LORD; and be strong O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts".
- Be strong
'Be strong'. What does this really mean?
My Strong's concordance tells us that when used as a verb, the original Hebrew word here means to be strong, strengthen, harden or take hold of.
In this context in Haggai it is referring to a combined moral and physical strength. It speaks of a rolling up of your sleeves to get to work whilst inwardly bracing yourself and encouraging yourself to set to the work.
But interestingly this Hebrew word is also expressing the idea of 'fastening' on or 'seizing' or 'taking hold of'.
Perhaps this is referring to a taking hold of our emotions - our courage - and our strength - to be strong, but it seems to me to point to a deeper strength, a deeper 'fastening' hold of. For we read that God tells them to 'be strong' because He is with them! He, the Great God of hosts. The God and Creator of all we see around us and more, the God of a great army of heavenly beings which we can't see.
They were to take hold of their physical and moral strength and be encouraged and work because of that greater cause for courage and strength - that the LORD God of heaven and earth was helping them.
- Application to us
And so, my dear friend, let us return to you and me today.
Perhaps we have been evaluating ourselves too much by what we see on social media, or what those around us are doing, or by how we have performed in the past.
We may have started to have to a greater or lesser extent those symptoms of 'comparison paralysis' - overwhelm and fear of making wrong decisions which can ultimately lead to inaction, procrastination and low self-esteem.
Our optimistic enthusiasm for our new projects has faded, and now what?
1. Let us remember why we are doing this project.
Were we, as with the Jewish rebuilders of the temple, given instruction by the Lord to do this project, either through His Word, the ministry of His servants, or by a direct word from Him?
Are we therefore undertaking this project as an act of obedience to the Lord?
2. What encouragement did we have when we began this project to now continue it?
For example, had we prayed about this project and it was an answer to prayer?
Did we feel and believe that the Lord was directing us to it?
Is it a project that honours and glorifies God by fulfilling our calling as a follower of Jesus - ie does it fulfill our role as helpmeet to our husband? Does our hard work as an example of a Christian employee glorify God?
Did He give some other token or word of encouragement to accompany His command, such as He gave the Jews when they listened and obeyed? ('I am with thee').
3. And now, can we confess before the Lord that yes, we have started looking at those around us, we have started comparing ourselves, our skills, our resources, our work so far with what others seem to be able to do or have done?
Have we started slowing down our work and thought perhaps there is no point in doing it, it will never be as good? As those ancient Jews who could compare the present time to their memories of the original temple, and as they compared the difference in their conditions and circumstances of building with the time of King Solomon's builders.
Dear friend, does this verse speak to you today?
Is the Holy Spirit softening your heart and influencing you to acknowledge the Lord has already told you or directed you into this path or project and now He is encouraging you to continue?
Not to look around at others, not to look at your perceived inadequacies, but lean all your weight on those precious words, 'Yet now be strong...be strong...be strong...saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts'.
And as part of that being strong, working and leaning on the Lord we can ask Him to give that help, that leading to the knowledge we feel to need, that provision of necessary skills and that successful outcome according to His will - and then give Him all the glory for what has been done.
Finally, perhaps this month's blog post hasn't really touched your own circumstances. You haven't started any new projects recently, you haven't made any goals, and you don't think the Lord has given you any new commands or instructions for particular action.
But, is there somebody you know who has started something new who could benefit from your godly encouragement, prayers, guidance and support?
Or, have you considered this verse as an application to your own very life as a follower and disciple of Jesus?
Perhaps you sometime negatively compare yourself and your perceived progress on the pilgrim's path to Christians around you, those you have read about, or how you used to be.
Although you may not physically be working in a project may you too be enabled to lean on the Lord, to be strong in Him in your pathway, your daily life, thoughts and actions so that others may see your 'work'; your daily example of how a Christian lives, looking to Jesus for strength.
May God bless and uphold you all.
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