I was thinking about it, and I've been a Christian for almost 20 years.
I became a Christian right around age 21 and 40, so I suppose technically 19 years.
And if I look back over that period of time and all that has happened,
there is one consistent nagging question that has undoubtedly been the greatest source of doubt for me in my faith.
And yes, pastors are full of doubt sometimes, maybe even more so than other people.
And there's been one central cause behind most of my doubt, and that's the question of suffering, what we call theodicy.
Basically put this question of how, if God is all good and all powerful, can there be such suffering and evil and injustice in the world?
I have wrung my hands and stayed up late many nights wondering about that question.
And if you just quickly scan the headlines, you know, I did this on Friday.
I just kind of went and said, you know, what are the highlight headlines in the news?
Here's what I saw at like a three-minute glance.
Back-to-back hurricanes wreaking havoc, killing people and destroying homes and entire communities.
A bomb explosion in the London Underground.
North Korea menacingly firing missiles over Japan.
White nationalist rallies happening around the country.
That's just a three-minute scan.
And then I started thinking about the lives of people I know.
I mean, people right here in our own community.
Right now in our community, there are people struggling with loneliness,
with unwanted, unchosen singleness, or with marital strife, facing unemployment or impending unemployment.
People who are struggling because they are homesick.
People who are struggling because of challenges trying to parent their children.
Or maybe their kids are sick.
People facing sickness themselves.
People grieving the recent death of dear immediate family, loved ones.
I mean, all of this is happening right now.
And that's just a tiny sliver of what's going on in our greater community.
And so if you think about that, you realize that if you're a Christian and you have any integrity at all,
in a world like this, you have to face really tough questions.
You cannot be a Christian in a world like ours and not have to wrestle with very tough questions like this one.
The good news is we are not the first people to ask these questions.
And in fact, God's people have been asking these questions for thousands of years.
And if you look in the Bible, there's probably no one who asks hard questions with more brutal honesty than a man named Habakkuk.
He's one of the prophets.
You can find him in the Old Testament.
And Habakkuk, it's a short book, but it's packed with incredibly profound and unique writing.
Habakkuk is unique among the prophets that we see in the Bible for one major reason.
Most prophets follow a similar formula.
You have God, and then the prophet is aligned with God.
And the prophet, on behalf of God, is questioning the people.
Right? So the prophet speaks for God, and the prophet questions God's people.
Why do you go on sinning?
Why don't you come and repent?
Why don't you trust and put your faith in the Lord?
Why are you abandoning the Lord your God?
And this is the sort of central prophetic message that you see again and again and again.
Well, Habakkuk is different.
Habakkuk is not questioning God's people.
Habakkuk is actually aligning himself with God's people,
and Habakkuk is questioning God on their behalf.
And it's a very intense dialogue that we see unfold here.
And through all of this questioning of God, the pushback, the doubt,
somehow Habakkuk remains faithful.
So we're going to ask, how is that possible?
What do we have to learn from this amazing little book?
So we're going to be spending the next few weeks in a series called,
How Long, O Lord?
Asking this question together.
And tonight we really come to understand doubt
and the role that doubt plays in our faith.
So Habakkuk chapter 1 is going to show us a couple of things.
First, the doubt in our faith.
And then secondly, the promise in our pain.
The promise that is embedded deeply in the pain and suffering of the world.
So let's pray together as we get started.
Our Father, we thank you for your word,
and we thank you that sometimes your word is clear and makes sense,
and sometimes it's very hard to understand,
or it says things that we don't want to hear.
But we know that all of it is good and profitable,
and by the power of your Holy Spirit can equip us
and mature us and nourish us in ways that we cannot find anywhere else.
And so we come hungry and thirsty and open-hearted, Lord,
by the power of your Spirit to receive your word today.
We pray this in your Son's holy name. Amen.
So Habakkuk chapter 1, it really begins with a bang.
I mean, he dives right in.
There's no introduction.
He just gets right to it.
Brass-tax kind of guy.
But let me just give you a little bit of information about Habakkuk.
We don't know a whole lot about him.
He's one of what we call the minor prophets.
Now, don't let that make you think that he's less important.
You know, read the major prophets,
but the minor prophets are less important.
That's not what it's talking about.
Minor prophets simply means shorter in length.
So you have Isaiah, Jeremiah.
They're very long.
The minor prophets are a lot shorter.
Habakkuk's only three chapters.
So it's like book-length prophets versus blog-length prophets
is maybe a better way to think of it.
And Habakkuk is an interesting word name.
It's Akkadian.
And quite frankly, scholars can't agree on how to pronounce it.
And so I'm going to say Habakkuk.
Some people say Habakkuk.
The traditional Hebrew way of saying it is Habakkuk.
I tried that in the mirror,
and I just couldn't do it with a straight face.
Every time I did it, I would laugh.
And so I'm just not, I can't do that.
I'm not a speaker of Hebrew.
And so I'm just going to say Habakkuk,
for lack of a better option.
We don't know a lot about him personally,
but I think his words immediately resonate.
Just listen to how he opens his writing here.
The first four verses are Habakkuk talking to God.
And then verses 5 through 11 are God's response.
And then verse 12 through the end of the chapter, verse 17,
that's Habakkuk responding back to God's response.
So that's how it, you know, Habakkuk, God, Habakkuk.
That's how it goes.
So here's how it opens up.
Habakkuk says this to God.
Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Now is there anybody who has not said that?
How long will I cry for help, and you will not hear?
Or cry to you, violence!
Violence!
And you will not save.
You know, as I said before,
I think this is a question for the ages.
God, if you're all good and all powerful,
how can you look at what's happening to me, to us,
and not do anything about it?
Where are you?
And then God, as I said, answers in verses 5 through 11.
We'll look at that more in a little bit,
but suffice it to say,
it is not what Habakkuk expects at all.
It just makes things worse.
And so after that, in verse 13,
listen to what Habakkuk goes on to say.
He says in verse 13,
you who are of purer eyes than to see evil,
and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors,
and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man
more righteous than he?
So what's he saying there?
I mean, he's kind of being honest, right?
God, I know we're not perfect.
I know we deserve some judgment.
You know, nobody's saying we're perfect,
but they are way worse than us.
He's talking about the Chaldeans.
This is one of the words in the Bible for the Babylonians.
If you know anything about the Babylonians,
they were, as God himself says,
cruel and vicious and wicked and bloodthirsty.
They didn't even know or care about the God of the Bible.
They worshipped their own strength.
And Habakkuk is saying,
you know, we don't have our act together.
We've got some ways we need to shape up,
but we're nothing like them.
And then he says,
how do you dare to be a God who hates evil,
who claims to love goodness and justice?
You claim to love us,
and yet you're going to let them sweep across the world,
take us captive like a man would put sand into a jar.
And you've got to hear the desperation in his voice.
You know, at the core of his questioning of God,
Habakkuk is zeroing in on a disconnect that he perceives
between what God has revealed
and his lived experience.
That's the disconnect.
Right?
God, you say you're good,
and yet you seem to tolerate evil just fine.
God, you say you care about justice,
and yet we're drowning in injustice.
God, you say that you love us,
but from where I'm looking,
it seems like you've abandoned us.
God, you say,
help us understand.
That's the core of chapter one.
So you might say,
he's expressing some doubt, right?
So I want to stop there and just ask,
what are we meant to make of this?
Why is this in Scripture to begin with?
And I think it shows us a couple of things
just before we move on.
I want to focus a little bit on the implications of this.
The first thing it shows us is this.
It shows us that doubt is extremely important.
That in fact, for believers,
I think doubt is extremely valuable.
It's valuable.
Not only does God allow Habakkuk to doubt him,
right, these are some of the strongest words
leveled at God anywhere in the Bible.
I mean, he is towing the line of direct accusation.
God not only allows him to do that,
but then God takes this writing
and he places it in his canon.
This is holy inspired Scripture, right?
This is meant to be profitable
for our growth.
And this is, I think,
a clear sign
that doubt is meant to be
integral to a healthy,
maturing faith.
Right?
So, you know,
you can't really get this
unless you look at the whole book.
And sometimes, you know,
week to week, sermon by sermon,
we can lose the forest for the trees.
But if you look at the whole scope of Habakkuk,
commentators will say
that it's not just a book on doubt.
It's partly that.
But I think one of the best commentators out there
is a guy named Palmer Robertson.
And he says this.
He says,
Remarkably,
the reader is allowed
the unique privilege
of witnessing the progress
of the prophet himself
in submitting to a new concept
of the Lord's purposes
among Israel and the nations.
The idea of growth
or maturing in faith
is essential to appreciating
the genius of this prophecy.
You hear what he's saying?
This isn't just about doubt.
As he expresses doubt,
we get to see Habakkuk grow
and mature
because he's doing that.
And if you look at the book,
Habakkuk begins in sorrow,
but you know how it ends?
In song.
The whole third chapter
is a song of praise.
Now, some of you grew up
in religious homes
and you grew up
or religious churches
where the culture
was very much about
accept what you've been taught
and don't ask questions.
And if you asked hard questions,
well, this seems to be
an inconsistency
and how do we understand this?
And these two books
seem to contradict each other.
You know, people,
parents or pastors
would say,
don't ask questions.
Faith means just accepting
even if you don't understand.
Right?
And so some of us were taught
that if you ask questions
or have doubts
and express those,
that means you have
a weak faith.
Well, I think that Habakkuk
shows us the exact opposite
is true.
That in fact,
not asking questions
means you have
a weak faith.
Because what that shows you
is that your faith
is like this really
delicate house of cards,
this sand castle,
this glass sculpture
and that you have to
protect it
from even a strong wind
that might knock it over.
That's a weak faith.
A strong faith
is a faith
that can hold up
even in the storm,
even when everything
is breaking loose
and things are falling apart.
A strong faith
is that kind of faith
that can be amassed
in the storm
that you can cling to.
How do you get that?
You have to weather
a few storms.
It has to be challenged.
So we're not called
to have a blind faith.
We're called to have
a bold faith.
Boldly facing doubt.
Boldly asking hard questions.
So that then begs
the next question
which is okay,
well how do we get
that kind of faith?
How does doubt
lead to that kind of faith?
And I would say
we need to look at Habakkuk
and what he's actually doing
with his doubt.
What's he doing
with all these questions?
Is he hiding them?
Is he going off
and complaining
to other people about them?
I can't believe.
Can you believe what he's,
you know.
No, he's coming directly
to God with them.
In prayer.
He's wrestling with God
over questions
that he has about God.
Right?
He's falling on his knees
before him.
And what we've got to understand
is that, I mean,
verse 12 is the giveaway
that really shows us
his posture.
He says,
even in the midst
of his frustration
and his anger,
he says,
O Lord, my God.
My Holy One.
Right?
So this isn't a man
who's standing back
from God saying,
you better explain all this
or I, you know,
I'm not going to,
you need to help me
or, you know,
the jury's still out on you.
That's not what he's doing.
He's like a child.
He's falling into the arms of God
and saying,
help.
This doesn't make sense.
Help.
My God.
My Holy One.
I know I belong to you.
I know that you're holy.
I'm not even questioning that.
Help me.
Understand this.
It's a very different posture.
You see doubt expressed
in different ways
in the Bible.
There's a great example of this,
of the contrast
in Luke chapter 1.
Interesting back-to-back accounts
between two individuals.
You have Zechariah
and you have Mary.
And in both accounts,
Zechariah and Mary,
an angel comes out of nowhere
and says,
you're about to have a baby.
And both people
are astounded, right?
Zechariah's past childbearing years,
Mary's a virgin.
So both Zechariah and Mary
express doubt to the angel.
What?
How can this be?
What's going to happen?
So they both question
the claim being made
by the divine being.
So up to that point,
they're the same.
But then the angel's response
makes these stories
radically different.
What happens to Mary?
The angel is kind
and loving
and generous
and gives her more information
and helps her to understand, right?
What happens to Zechariah?
Right?
He gets struck mute.
Right?
Oh, you're asking questions.
I'm going to take away
your ability to speak
until the baby comes, right?
And you just think,
well, what's going on there?
Is Gabriel just kind of
having a bad day?
And he's like,
I'm tired of all the questions.
Bam!
No more words from you.
You know?
And it's interesting
to try to make sense of that.
But the answer, I think,
comes from the fact
that the Bible
has a very nuanced
understanding of doubt.
A very nuanced
understanding of doubt.
And this is where
you see the difference.
There's what you might think of
as honest doubt.
And there's what you might call
dishonest doubt.
And if you look at Mary,
Mary is an honest doubter.
Which means this.
She is honestly looking
for more information.
She's honestly wanting
to understand.
Right?
She knows that she's a virgin
and she simply wants
to understand
the angel better.
So she asks literally,
how will this happen
since I have not known
my husband?
How is this going to happen?
What are the mechanics of it?
Because I don't,
I can't,
I don't know how
this kind of thing works.
Right?
And if you look at Zechariah,
what he's actually asking
is subtly
but very meaningfully different.
Zechariah says,
not how will this happen,
but he says,
how do I know?
It's a very different tone.
So in other words,
he's not saying,
help me understand this better.
He's saying,
prove it.
Maybe I'll believe you,
maybe not.
Prove it to me
and then we'll see.
Very different kind of doubt
because honest doubt
comes from a place
of intellectual humility.
Honest doubt is saying,
you know,
I know I don't understand everything.
I know you know
way more than I do.
Understand things way beyond
what I'll ever be able to.
Help me understand.
Give me wisdom.
Give me knowledge.
Give me understanding.
That's honest doubt.
It's asking questions
and wanting answers.
Dishonest doubt
is called dishonest doubt
because it actually tends
to come from a place
of intellectual pride.
Right?
It's the posture
that assumes
you know most everything
worth knowing
and even more importantly
that if you can't
understand something,
if something doesn't fit
with your sense
of how the world works,
it must not be true.
See, so it's not really doubt.
It's more of a kind
of posture of judgment.
I will decide
whether this is true or false.
I will decide.
And if it doesn't make sense to me,
it's probably not true.
And there are a number
of people who say,
you know,
you look at Christianity
and there are these mysteries
and seeming inconsistencies
and things that don't line up.
That's a clear sign
that it's not true.
And I would say,
if that's your way of thinking,
you should really question that.
I think assuming
that things can only be true
if we understand them
fully
is the height
of human arrogance.
Right?
Unexplained mysteries
don't automatically mean
something isn't true.
In fact,
if we're really dealing
with the deepest mysteries
of existence,
wouldn't we expect
that there would be
some things
that might be just beyond
our vast intellectual capacity?
So I think one of the things
to take away from this is,
beware simplistic answers.
Do you know,
some of the greatest times
of growth for me
in my own spiritual life
have come from people
asking me,
knowing I'm a Christian,
and asking me
really, really,
really hard questions.
Well, how do you explain this?
What do you Christians
think about that?
Because what it does
is it drives me
into prayer,
and it drives me
into God's Word.
And it drives me
to ask and seek out
the advice and wisdom
of people who have been
believers longer than I have,
who are more mature
than I am.
And all of those things
bring about
great opportunities
for rich maturity
and growth.
But we have to be willing
to face the hard questions
if we want that
to be true for us.
So that's part one,
the doubt in our faith
and the significant role
it plays in Habakkuk's life
and in our life.
And now,
with the rest of our time,
we're going to look
at God's response,
verses 5 through 11,
and we'll see the promise
to be found
in our pain.
Here's how God responds.
Now listen,
imagine that you're Habakkuk,
you've just said
what you've said.
Now here's what God says.
Look among the nations
and see,
wonder and be astounded,
for I'm doing a work
in your days
that you would not believe
if told.
And you can imagine
Habakkuk saying,
I'm ready,
lay it on me,
this is going to be amazing.
And then guess what God says?
If you go on,
right?
I'll just summarize it for you.
God essentially says,
and I'm sort of putting
words in his mouth,
hopefully this is
an accurate paraphrase,
you think it's bad now?
You think this is bad?
It's going to get way worse.
Right?
I'm going to raise up
the Chaldeans,
the Babylonians,
who are bloodthirsty
and wicked
and they only worship
their own strength,
and they're going to take
all of you captive
like a man piles sand
into a jar.
Now that's an interesting reference
considering the promise
given to Abraham, right?
I'm going to make
your descendants
as vast and as numerous
as grains of sand.
Right?
Well now God's saying,
I'm going to let
this foreign nation
who hates me
and hates you,
they're going to gather
all of that sand up
and put it in a jar.
They're going to take you captive.
Right?
And Habakkuk is horrified
and so Habakkuk fires back
and says essentially,
Lord, as I said,
I know we're not perfect
but there's so much worse.
How could you let this happen?
And chapter 1
ends with this image
of Habakkuk saying,
you know,
all of us are like fish
in the sea
and you're allowing
the Babylonians
to be like this fisherman
who just mercilessly
like a commercial fisherman
just throws these big nets out
and gathers everybody up
and then at the end of the day
they don't even give you
thanks for that, God.
They worship their nets.
And then he says,
are you just going to let them
take over the world?
Is this your great plan?
End scene.
Right?
That's how chapter 1 ends.
But fortunately,
we have an advantage,
I think,
that Habakkuk didn't have
which means we know
a little bit more
of the story.
This is happening
in the, you know,
around the 6th,
7th century BC
so we have a little
more perspective.
All Habakkuk knows
is that this wicked nation
is going to conquer them
and take them into exile.
And yet more happens
and 600 years later
the Apostle Paul
is preaching in a synagogue
and he's preaching
to a combination
of Jews and God-fearers.
These are people
who are Gentiles
who want to follow God
and have a relationship
with Him
and so they're Gentile converts
to Judaism.
And so he's preaching
to this mixed audience
and he's talking about Jesus.
And he's talking about
how because of the cross
and the death
and resurrection of Jesus
it's now possible
to be saved in a way
that the law
didn't make possible.
And that's something
that is now open
to everyone.
Jews and Gentiles alike, right?
This is this new message
of the gospel.
In other words,
Paul is sort of,
he's just sort of laying out
God's plan for salvation
and then of all things
he could have quoted
in the Old Testament scriptures,
where does he go?
He quotes Habakkuk 1.5.
I mean, that's crazy, right?
He quotes this passage
full of doubt.
And he quotes
where God is saying,
look, you scoffers,
be astounded and perish,
for I'm doing a work
in your days,
a work that you will not believe
even if one tells it to you.
He quotes Habakkuk 1.5.
And the fact that he quotes it
where he quotes it
tells us something
loud and clear.
Paul is saying,
when God said these words
to Habakkuk,
ultimately these words
were pointing
to the coming of Jesus.
Habakkuk never could have known that.
But this is what God
is actually saying.
He's saying to Habakkuk,
look and be astounded.
Look at what's about to happen.
He says,
you know,
I'm going to raise up Babylon
and you're going to be
taken into exile.
But that's just the beginning.
He says,
then I'm going to raise up Assyria
and Assyria is going to conquer Babylon.
And then you're going to be
set free again.
And then Greece is going to take over.
And because the Greeks take over,
their language is going to become
the dominant common language
among these known people groups.
And then after that,
you're going to become decentralized.
And instead of the temple,
you're going to develop
the synagogue system.
And so all of these Gentiles
are going to start to come in
and become familiar
with the Jewish way of life
and religion.
And then Rome is going to take over
and establish the Pax Romana.
And then the known world
is going to be connected by roads
and a common system of government
and systems and institutions.
And then this perfect storm
of major political forces
that Habakkuk,
you're not even going to begin
to understand.
This perfect storm
is going to be established
from all these countervailing movements
in world history.
And right in the midst
of that perfect storm,
God's Son is going to plunge Himself.
And while you, Habakkuk,
may cry out,
O Lord,
and believe that you're alone.
And while we may cry out,
O Lord,
and believe that we're alone.
That man is going to cry out,
O Lord,
from the cross,
and he will be alone.
The only one in history
that God truly abandoned.
But because of that,
because of that,
this promise is going to ensue
of a complete cosmic renewal.
Because of this death,
all the injustice
and hatred
and cruelty,
all of that stuff
that you're railing against Habakkuk,
all of that is going to be dealt with.
And one day,
justice will fill the earth again.
And then the news of this
is going to begin to spread.
And it's going to go far and wide.
And then people are going to start
writing it down.
In what language?
Koine Greek,
the common tongue.
And then it's going to begin
to be written down
and formed into something
that will be called the Bible.
And then that's going to be
translated into Latin.
And then it's going to start
to be translated
into all of the various
common tongues
around the known world.
And that book
is going to become
to date
the most widely read book
in the history
of humanity.
And that book
is going to contain
all things necessary
for any human being,
regardless of their background,
regardless of their ethnicity,
to be reconciled
to the creator God
of the universe.
So yes, Habakkuk,
I'll try to answer
your question.
But even if I laid
all of it out for you,
you wouldn't believe me.
You wouldn't believe me.
You wouldn't understand.
But here's the thing, Habakkuk.
It starts with exile.
It's going to be hard.
Trust me.
So this is the choice,
I think,
that we have to make
on a daily basis.
Because just like Habakkuk,
I think that we live lives
where there's a disconnect
between what God has said
and who he says he is
and then what our lives look like
on a daily basis.
And it doesn't seem
to fit together.
Right?
On the one hand,
God promises to be our God,
to work all things
for our good,
to never stop loving us.
And yet,
on the other hand,
our lives are sometimes
full of struggle
and hardship
and it seems like
God is nowhere.
So this core question
is put to us
just as it was him.
Are you going to trust
only what you see
with your eyes?
Or are you going to trust
the words of God
to shape your ultimate
understanding of reality?
Where do you put your faith?
Do I trust that God's promises
might be unfolding
even in the midst
of my pain?
Paul saw the promise
in the pain
and the question
is presented to us.
Can we have eyes
to see the promise
unfolding
even in the midst
of our pain?
The world's groaning
in pain.
You know,
in our northeast congregation,
our pediatrician,
Dr. Reese,
you know,
Kristen Reese Hall,
she's our boys pediatrician
and she's a wonderful woman
and wonderful doctor.
But every so often
we have to take our boys
to see her
and we have to break
the news to them
in the car
that when we get there
you're going to have
to get a shot.
And they freak out
because that's what kids do,
right?
And then there ensues
a kind of theological debate,
right?
Well,
if Dr. Reese
is all-knowing
and if she's good
and if she's loving
and she wants the best
for us
then how
when this random nurse
comes in
and sticks a piece
of metal in my leg
why does she sit
idly by?
Why does she not
hear our cries?
Right?
Why does she do nothing?
And we say
everybody can hear
your cries.
That's not the problem,
right?
And we say,
you know,
we could try
to explain it to them
but they can't really
understand immunizations
and all that
because they're five,
right?
And seven.
And so at the end
of the day
we say trust us.
Now this is nowhere
near the scale
that we're dealing
with in Habakkuk
but it's a,
it's at the core
of it the same question,
right?
Are you going to trust me
that this is ultimately
going to turn out
for your good?
Are you going to trust
me with this?
You know,
some of you know
the story of,
you know,
my wife and I,
we met years ago
in 1999
and we got,
fell in love
and got engaged
and everything
was great
and then as we
got engaged
and started approaching
the wedding
I just began
to lock down
and I can't really
explain it
but essentially
I can only describe it
as a kind of profound
emotional,
spiritual,
psychological block
where I just could not
move forward.
I was utterly terrified
and this resulted
in us having to
call off our engagement
and it was bad
because it was only
a few months
before the wedding
so we're talking
thousands and thousands
of dollars
of deposits lost,
trying to sell
bridesmaids dresses
on eBay,
you know,
the whole nine yards.
Laura was utterly
devastated,
you know,
I was so devastated
and depressed
that I started taking
antidepressants
and going to counseling
and trying to figure out
what's wrong with me.
I felt like I was
a massive failure
and we were apart
for five years
and much of that early time,
first two or three years
was just wrestling
with God
over what happened,
what,
I felt so called to this
and she felt so called
to this
and it all seemed right,
what happened to me?
You know,
and it's weird
when there's something
in your own soul
that you can't understand.
There's a part of you
that's doing something
that you can't even
make sense of.
You feel like
you've betrayed yourself,
at least I did.
And then through
this whole series
of events,
five years later,
we reconnect,
we realize we're more
in love than ever,
we get back together,
we get engaged,
we get married
and now we've been
married for ten years,
we have three beautiful kids
and I may be biased
but I think we have
one of the best marriages around.
I'm absolutely crazy
about her
and she likes me okay
as well
and it works great.
And you know,
the funny thing
about that story is,
again,
it's just a small example,
it's nothing like Habakkuk,
but the funny thing
is that two things
are simultaneously true
that don't really
seem to fit together.
On the one hand,
would I wish that
on anyone?
Absolutely not.
It was a dark night
of the soul
for both of us.
And yet on the other hand,
when I ask her,
and this comes up
every now and then,
would you change anything?
If you could,
would you change it?
She says,
absolutely not.
And that's a weird
thing to say.
But when we look at that,
somehow that is a part
of who we are as people
and it's a part,
I think,
of why our marriage
is so strong now.
Now,
if you had tried
to tell me any of that
in 2002,
I would have laughed
you out of my house.
I don't even want
to hear that.
But now,
looking back,
God was somehow
mysteriously at work.
Now,
I don't understand
everything about it.
I certainly have
a lot of questions.
I can't wait
to ask God about it.
A lot of other stuff
in life.
But I can tell you
that we see
God's goodness in it.
In other words,
we're able to see
the promise in the pain.
God's will unfolding
in some amazing way
that we wouldn't even believe
even if he told us.
Right?
So the most amazing thing
about Habakkuk,
and this is where
we need to stop
for this week,
the most amazing thing
about Habakkuk
is that Habakkuk
doesn't have
any of this perspective
bear in mind.
He doesn't know
what's on the other
side of exile.
He doesn't know
anything about
the coming of Jesus.
He doesn't know
any of that.
All he knows
is he's staring exile
in the face
like looking down
the barrel of a gun.
And yet,
even without
that perspective,
he trusts God.
And he falls
into his arms.
So how much more
then can we
who have the
perspective of
Jesus Christ
trust God?
even if things
are hard
and don't make sense.
Because we're able
to look at the cross
and see the promise
in the pain
that the greatest
pain and suffering
ever experienced
by a human being
could produce
the greatest hope
the world has ever
known.
In the name of the
Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.