I'm not sure I've ever read the book of Habbakuk before.
I've joked about the name. I've argued the pronounciation. But I'm not sure I've ever read it before...I must have, I had to read the whole bible through when I was in College at Biola, but I sure don't remember it.
I love this book because Habakkuk, a prophet from God, is not afraid to ask the hard questions. In Habakkuk 1:2-4 Habakkuk cries out, "How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you 'Violence!' but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice nver prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted."
How often have you or I watched the news and thought, "How long, O LORD, must a call for help, but you do not listen?"
When we watched the Twin Towers fall, watched the war in Iraq escalate, attended the funerals of fallen soldiers, seen a news story about a baby shaken to death by his mother's boyfriend, been involved in a lock-down because some crazy guy is driving around the local Wal-mart parking lot shooting people...
When we see these things, the temptation is great to cry out "ARE YOU THERE GOD?? Why aren't you DOING something about this??"
The answers aren't always the one's we want. The answer Habakkuk received surely took him by surprise. In verses 8-11 God goes on to tell Habakkuk that He is going to raise up the evil and allow them to be stronger. WHAT?!?
The very hard truth is sometimes God allows evil to bring people to God. I can tell you from my own experience of going through this process of figuring out what was going on with my thyroid, facing the very real fear that it might be cancer, caused me to draw closer to God than I have in a very long time. God chose to spare me, for now...no one knows the day or the hour that we will be called home.
God's ways are not our ways...but we like to try to put God in a box.
God's purposes, His plans, never fail...but we try to tell Him how it should be done.
God is God...but we try to be God ourselves.
It's hard to be faithful in the midst of confusion. Habakkuk was faithful. He brought his questions to God, and he allowed God to be God. It is my prayer that I will be able to do the same. How about you?
Monday, September 03, 2007
God is bigger than my confusion....
Posted by Sally Datria at 1:09 PM
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4 comments:
While it's a shame that it takes these horrible moments to draw us closer...I love the fact that God's open arms are always there to draw us in. Great words, Sally.
:-) Susan
What a convicting post~ letting God be God. I so struggle with that.
Posts like this and others of yours are why I talked about you in my blog today...like I told Heather, it's all nice. Promise!
http://peek-a-booicu.blogspot.com/
On a little side note, we had another lock down at school today~ Some prisoner had escaped from somewhere and apparently was close enough to our school for the PD to call a lock down. We could see the PD heliocopters flying around when I stepped out to lock my door but there's been nothing on the news about an escaped prisoner except to say he escaped so maybe he's still out there??
Habakkuk not only let God be God, he also had the "gall" (so to speak) to exult and rejoice in God.
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