KATHY GABLER—By the time we find Judah in the book of EZRA, after being prisoners of confusion in Babylon, they are tired of looking for change and seeing only sameness.  As soon as they came from captivity, they set up an altar for sacrifice and laid the foundations of a temple.  However, in Ezra 4, it tells us their neighbors discouraged them and frightened them away from building. They’d hired counselors against them to frustrate them.  They wrote accusations against Judah and Jerusalem saying they would become traitors.  The government then stopped them by force and work on the temple ceased until the second year of Darius king of Persia.
By then however, the storms of life had layered grit and grime on their “windows” making it difficult to see anything encouraging. They couldn’t see the need to keep on trying!  They had no spirit nor courage to try again.  They said, “Not NOW, we haven’t even recovered from captivity.  We can’t deal with one more thing right now!”
Hag 1:1-4,  “In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai.  This is what the LORD Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come for the LORD’s house to be built.'” 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?” (NIV)  Giving up because we are weary is not an option.