Remember - Habakkuk 3

During my first year as a pastor in Lewisburg, I was sitting with the pastor from the Baptist Church which was right across the alley from us, and we got talking about where we grew up.  I told him I grew up in a small town in CT.  He asked me where it was and I said, in the southeastern corner of the state.  He said, what was the name of the town, I said, oh no one has ever heard of it, it’s called Niantic, and he said, oh, so you graduated from East Lyme High School.  My mouth fell open and I said, yes, how did you know?  He said, I did too.

I said, no, you didn’t.  He said, yes, I did.  I finally said, ok, if you graduated from East Lyme then you know the alma mater because we all had to learn the alma mater.  So I started saying it and he joined in.  To thee our alma mater, we make this solemn vow, to know to love to serve thee the best that we know how…  

I was absolutely shocked that we went to the same high school and now we were serving churches next to each other in Lewisburg PA.  As amazing as that was, what really amazed me was that we both knew the alma mater!  Isn’t it amazing how our brains work?  I can still tell you the phone number of my grandmother’s house where we lived for several years, 739-5214, and the house we moved to when I was in 4th grade, 739-9137.  Why do I still know those numbers but I can’t remember any pin numbers or password I have today?!  Why can I recite dialogue from tv shows and movies but can’t recite scripture with more frequency?  Why can I remember eating fish sticks at the family lobster bakes but can’t remember what I had for dinner last week?

As challenging as it can be for us to remember, our memory can actually help us through difficult times, and lead us to a deeper faith.  We have spent the past few weeks learning how to find hope and strength in times of struggle by reading the message of Habakkuk.  Habakkuk was a prophet who lived 600 years before Jesus and he wrote during a difficult time in the life of Israel.  The nation was experiencing corruption and injustice internally and opposition and persecution externally, and Habakkuk asked God, How long?'  He shared with God the questions and frustrations that the people had, and we learn from him that it is always ok to question God.

If that is the only message you take away from this series, I hope you will take that one.  It is always ok to question God.  In fact, God would rather have us yell at him in frustration than walk away from him in silence.  In times of doubt and despair, we need to not turn away but truly be Habakkuk and embrace God even as we wrestle with Him.  And that is what Habakkuk means, to embrace and to wrestle.

If we are going to ask questions, however, we have to be willing to wait and listen for God to reply.  Waiting is hard, but it is essential if we are going to hear God’s word, and if we are going to hear God, we first need to create the space and silence needed to listen.  Today, as we finish up Habakkuk, I have some bad news, we aren’t going to find all our problems solved and questions answered by the end of worship.  Habakkuk would not make a good tv show because the problems don’t get resolved in 30 minutes.  What it does do, however, is show us how to endure and develop a stronger faith - and ultimately that is what is important.  Habakkuk really teaches us how to endure difficult times with faith.  It gives us hope in the dark.

While we want answers to our questions, God wants us to have a more mature faith.  While we want clarity, God wants us to develop courage and character, and where this deeper faith comes from is a heart and mind that can remember God.  That is how Habakkuk ends his message, with a prayer that remembers all God has done.  Habakkuk 3:3-7.

In his prayer, Habakkuk mentions both Temen and Mt. Paran, and these were some of the lands that the people of Israel travelled to when they left Egypt.  They were east of the Red Sea and by naming them, Habakkuk helped the people remember that when there was no way forward, when the enemy was literally closing in on them and all hope seems lost, God made a way.  God parted the Red Sea and allowed the people to cross over on dry ground and into a new land.  God made a way where there was no way.

When Habakkuk then talked about the glory of God covering the heavens, and God’s splendor being like rays coming forth from God’s hand, he was reminding the people how God appeared in His glory on Mt Sinai, which many believe was in the area of Mt. Paran.  It also reminded the people that God led them through the wilderness with a pillar of fire.  And then when Habakkuk talked about God using plagues and pestilence, it was a reminder of how the plagues God sent on Egypt helped move Pharaoh to set God’s people free.  As Habakkuk waits for God’s answers, he strengthens himself and his faith by remembering who God is and what God has done.

As we go through difficult times and wrestle with questions, doubts, and fears, we need to remember who God is and what God has done.  Last week we talked about journaling and one of the most powerful things about keeping a journal is the ability to go back and see what God has done.  I was part of a prayer team that for several months decided to keep a prayer journal and one week we went back and looked at our prayers.  We found that many of our prayers had been answered.  That gave us the strength and courage to keep praying and to keep trusting God because we could see God’s faithfulness and power.  We celebrated what God had done and like Habakkuk we said, do it again, God. Habakkuk 3:2.  Renew them in our day, in our time make them known.

Can you look back on a time in your life where God made a way where there seemed to be no way?  Can you remember a time when God answered a prayer in a way that you knew simply had to be the hand of God?  Those are the things we need to remember and those are the stories we need to tell ourselves and others over and over again.  Why is it that I still know my high school alma mater?  Because my freshman year I had to memorize it and so I said it over and over again.
Growing stronger in our faith comes when we remember who God is, how God has moved in our lives, and how God has answered our prayers.

When I was in seminary and didn’t see a clear way forward, God made a way through the people of Mt. Herman UMC who showed me that I really did want to be a pastor.  In Altoona, when our afterschool program was wearing us all out physically, emotionally, and spiritually, we would gather each week after the kids went home and be ready to quit - but every week there was at least one of us who was strong and said – we need to keep going.  25 years later that program is still going.

Our mission team can tell stories of being in the right place at the right time to help someone with needs they didn’t even know existed.  A few years ago we took a quilt down for the man whose home we would be working on.  It was a patriotic quilt, but we didn’t know he was a veteran.  We also didn’t know that the gift would move him so deeply that he gave us a sewing machine he had.  And what he didn’t know is that we needed sewing machines to send to Belize.  God made a way when we didn’t even know a way was needed, and it was a way of healing and hope for everyone.

Four months ago everything shut down due to covid -19, but we had made the right improvements, had the right people on board, and enough resources to start livestreaming worship without missing a week.  God made a way where there was no way and we need to tell these stories over and over again to give us the confidence, the conviction, and the courage to wait with faith and trust that God will do it again.

I want to invite you this week to take some time and remember some ways God has revealed Himself to you, or answered your prayers, or made a way in your life where you did not see a way.  It might be in finances, with jobs, in relationships, or just a gentle moving of the spirit that helped you see God in the beauty of creation.  Don’t just remember, write it down so that you can go back to it in the future and use that story to strengthen your faith and trust in God, or maybe strengthen the faith of others.  In our own congregation, Gail Spotts wrote down all the ways God gave her strength during several difficult times in her life and she turned those writings into a book that has given hope and peace to others.  Our stories of faith can strengthen us and others if we are willing to share them. 

As our faith and trust grow stronger, we move to a place of acceptance and peace so that no matter what happens around us, we know God is with us and working all things out according to His purpose.  Does this mean our prayers will be answered in our way and in our time?  Does it mean everything will work out ok?  No, not at all, but it does mean that we can make it through those times with faith and conviction.  This is how Habakkuk’s message ends, with faith and conviction, with assurance and peace.  Habakkuk 3:17-19a

Even if everything falls apart, God is still God.  God still loves me, God is still for me, and God is always with me.  Even if things don’t go the way I want them to go, God still has a plan and purpose for me.  Even though my questions, doubts, fears and struggles don’t go away, I can still be strong in faith and keep trusting God.  In fact, many times the only way to be strong in our faith and learn how to trust God is to work our way through the dark valleys.  Sometimes the only way to grow in our faith is by remembering who God is and how God has moved in the past as we struggle in the present.

We cannot give up on our faith when things don’t go our way or when we have questions that seem to go unanswered.  We can’t give up on God when it seems like God is not doing more to help us.  In those low moments, we can’t walk away from God, we have to learn how to cry out to God and then listen for God to speak.

As we wait, what can help us the most is to remember who God is and what God has done in history - and in our history.  When we remember God’s goodness and faithfulness it is absolutely OK to say to God, Do It Again.  Move again God.  Help us again God.

Today let’s remember what God has done.  Let’s remember how God has saved us and help us and cared for us in the past and then let’s say with faith and trust, Do it again, God.  Do it again.


Next Steps
Habakkuk 3 - Remember

What is your favorite hymn or worship song?  How does that song remind you of God’s character or movement in your life?  What memories does that song bring to you?

Read Habakkuk 3:1-3
● Describe a time when you saw the goodness of God, or experienced God’s faithfulness in your life?  When did you see God’s faithfulness come through in the life of someone you know?
● How can that memory help you embrace God today?

Read Habakkuk 3:4-7
● Habakkuk is describing some of the ways he knew God had moved in the history of God’s people.  What are some of the Bible stories that remind you of God’s power, presence, and love for His people?
● How can these stories help you embrace God today?

God doesn’t answer all our prayers the way we want Him to, or according to our time table. Use Habakkuk 3:17-19 as a statement of conviction or part of a prayer this week.

It is always ok to question God, but we can’t walk away once we are done talking.  We have to create space and silence for God to speak.  As we wait we need to remember how God has moved in the past and in our past.  This is the road to a deeper faith and trust.

Finish reading the psalms of lament this week:
Psalms 120, 123, 126, 129, 139, 141, 142.

Waiting - Habakkuk 2

I heard from many people that last week’s sermon hit home for them.  I don’t know if that’s good or bad because last week we talked about questioning God.  What’s good is that is ok to question
God.  God is big enough to handle our questions and God would rather have us yell and cry out to him than walk away in silence.   I’m glad people heard that and found comfort in the message, but what’s bad is that if we are questioning God it probably means we are going through a difficult time.  We question God when our prayers seem to go unanswered or when we have been doing everything the best we can, and being the most faithful we can, but tragedy and heartache still comes.  We question God when we have doubts about God’s goodness, and if God loves us, and if God is able or wants to help us.

Sometimes our questions begin with why?  Why God are you not doing something?  Why are You not healing?  Why are You not helping me or my family?  Why are these tragic things happening to good and innocent people?  Why do we still see prejudice and injustice?   Why is our country so divided and divisive?

Sometimes our questions begin with where?  Where are you God when bad things are happening in my life?  Where are You in the chaos of our world?  Where do You want me to go?  Are You even there?

Sometimes we just question God by shouting, Enough.  No more.  I can’t take it.  How long.  Help.  If you are going through a difficult time, I’m glad you are here today because it means that you have not allowed the struggle and questions and problems you are going through to drive you away from God.  You are here because you are still seeking God and want to be drawn closer to God.  I’m glad you are here today because God wants to draw you closer and speak to you, and we are going to learn how that can happen.

We are learning all of this from the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk, who wrote 600 years before Jesus.  Habakkuk wrote during a time in the history of Israel when there was great injustice and corruption among God’s people, and some real opposition and persecution against God’s people.  Habakkuk didn’t speak God’s word to the people as much as he spoke the people’s words to God.  Like many of us, he questioned and cried out to God.

Habakkuk said, How long, O Lord, must I cry for help but you do not listen.  Or cry out to you violence! And you do not save.  God heard Habakkuk’s cry and replied, but God’s answer caused more questions because God said he was going to use the Babylonians to judge the people of Israel.  God was going to use more evil people to judge the evil of his own people.  This created more questions for Habakkuk and in the midst of these questions, we find him doing two things.  He embraces God, and he wrestles with God.  That is what Habakkuk means, to embrace and to wrestle.

Last week our focus was on wondering where God is and what God is doing, and we were encouraged to not walk away but to embrace God.  This week we shift from wondering to waiting.  If we are going to question God, we have to be willing to wait for God’s answers.  But let’s be honest we don’t like to wait.

We live in an instant gratification society.  Netflix means we can watch movies and TV shows when we want to.  We might have to wait for a new season of a show, but they drop it all at once so we can binge watch the entire season at once and don’t have to wait from one week to the next to see what’s going to happen.

We have instagram and instant messages where we can share and communicate with people in real time.  We have instant pots which can cook a whole chicken in 25 minutes!  Why don’t I have one of these?  And of course there is the microwave which can reheat our food in seconds.  But as fast as the microwave works, we still don’t want to wait so we stop and open the microwave before it times out because we don’t want to wait those extra 5 or 10 seconds. (Or maybe that’s just me!)

We do not like to wait, and we often think of waiting as being passive, we just sit and do nothing, but the kind of waiting that is needed when we question God is not at all passive, it is active.  This is what Habakkuk said when he told God he would wait for his reply.  Habakkuk 2:1.  I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts.  I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.  

When Habakkuk says he will wait, he uses the image of a watchman.  If you think of a watchman on a tower, they are not idle, they are active, and they are constantly doing two important things.  They are looking for danger during the day and listening for danger at night.  When Habakkuk uses the image of a watchman he tells us that listening for God’s reply means paying attention, it means looking for what God is doing and listening for His voice.

If we are going to listen to God, we first need to be still.  We need to quiet our lives, our minds, and our voices to make room for God to speak.  Psalm 46 says, be still and know that I am God.  For us to hear God we have to learn how to be still because good listening requires stillness.   The problem is we are never still.

Many of us have bought into the idea that we can multitask well, so we do it all the time. We never just sit and do one thing anymore.  We will read, and text, and post to instagram, and have the TV on in the background.  We tell ourselves we are taking it all in, but we aren’t.  We simply are not wired that way.  Our brains are wired to only focus on one thing at a time, so when we are doing multiple things at once, our brain is actually stopping and starting over and over and over again.  It happens so quickly that most of the time we don’t notice, but every once in a while as we multitask we tune something out, or only catch part of what is being said.

You know how this works, you only hear part of what your spouse said because you were watching TV, or you only caught part of what your kids said because you were texting at the same time.  We aren’t meant to be doing multiple things at once, so if we are going to listen for God, the first thing we need to do is be still.

We have to create space and silence for God to speak because God still speaks.  God can speak to us through His word.  The Bible tells us that God’s word is living and active, which means that it can speak to our situations if we allow it to.  It might take days, weeks, even months of reading until we find it actually speaking to our situation, but it can and will speak if we give it a chance.  Can we open God’s word every day and allow the message to speak to us?  Can we develop intentional and systematic ways of reading God’s word that can help us hear God’s word?

God can also speak to us through people.  God can speak through trusted friends, family, and mentors.  We have to be willing to listen, and sometimes we might not hear the power of those words until later, but God can speak to us through others.  In college, when I wanted to move to California, my grandfather said, that’s too far away from your family.  There was wisdom in his words that I didn’t listen to.  In fact, twice I didn’t listen and tried to move to CA and both times it didn’t work out.  God was trying to speak to me but I wasn’t listening.

Situations can also help us hear God’s message and give us a clear sense of direction, and at times God can also speak directly to us.  I’ve shared before that there was a day when I heard an audible voice in a dream.  It shouted the words, 2 Timothy 2:2.  I woke up saying to myself 2 Timothy 2:2.  It was not a familiar passage so I went and looked it up.  The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men and women who will also be qualified to teach others.  

I had to read and reflect and ask God for days what this meant, and in time God showed me how this verse needed to direct my life at that moment.  Several years later I came back to it again and it gave me direction a second time.  God continues to speak this word to me, which is why I am still a pastor: entrusting to reliable, faithful men and women what I know of God and have learned of God so that you can share it with others.  If we will listen, God will speak, but we have to give God the time, and create the space, and the silence, so we can actively listen.

Listening to God also means learning how to write down what we hear.  Habakkuk 2:2.  Then the Lord replied, Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.  Active listening can include writing down what we hear and wrestling with those words to make sense out of it.  Many people call this journaling, and I’ll be honest, this is not a discipline I have been very good at.  I am convinced that God has said all kinds of things to me, but I never wrote it down so I lost the message, or I began to think that God never said it in the first place.  If we can learn to write down what we hear as we actively listen to God, we can then begin to examine those words, pray over them, and discern what is from God and what is not.

Let’s be honest, some things we hear in dreams just come from the pizza we ate the night before, but some things might actually be from God.  If we aren’t going to listen during the day, maybe God will speak to us at night, when we are quiet.  If we can discipline ourselves to write down what we hear from God during the day or at night, reflect on it, discuss it, pray about it, and go back to it days later, maybe we will actually begin to see that God is speaking to us.

It makes me sad to think of all the things God may have said to me but I never took the time to write it down and consider it, or act on it.  How many blessings have I missed?  How many times have I not blessed others because I did not act?  God encourages us to write down what we hear and then take the time to consider what that message says.

The final thing we are told to do when listening for God is to wait.  Habakkuk 2:3.  For the revelation awaits an appointed time.  It speaks of the end and will not prove false.  Though it linger, wait for it, it will certainly come and will not delay.  

We want God to speak now, today.  We want an answer the first time we sit down to listen, but that is not how God works.  Often God calls us to wait and to practice the art of listening.  Often God calls us to wait because he wants us to embrace him and wrestle with him.   Second Timothy 2:2 was an answer to a prayer I had prayed about 5 months earlier.  I wanted God to speak directly, and clearly, and he did, but it was in His time and not mine.  God spoke in his way, not in my way.  But God spoke.  God will speak to us if we will wait.

Wondering where God is and what God is doing, and asking God difficult and painful questions is not easy.  Waiting for God to answer and learning how to listen is harder.  Waiting is essential, however, because if it’s not God’s time, we can’t force it.  We can ask God to speak and act and help - that’s always ok, but we will never force God’s hand.  God’s time is God’s time and we can’t force it, but here’s the good news, when it is God’s time, we can’t stop it.  When God’s time to speak comes, and we are watching and waiting and listening, God will speak.

Last week, we learned that it was ok to question God and that our questions had the ability to draw us closer to God.  Our questions weren’t answered and our problems weren’t solved, but we knew it was ok to ask them.  This week, our questions still aren’t answered and our problems still aren't solved.  We are just told to listen, and watch, and wait.  Our life is not a sitcom where all problems are resolved neatly in 30 minutes including commercials, but waiting is not passive, it is active.  It’s turning off the noise and creating the space and silence needed for us to actually hear God when he speaks.  It’s writing down what we hear so we can consider if it is truly God’s word.  And waiting means waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more, knowing that when it’s God’s time, He will speak and if it is God’s time, nothing will stop Him. 


Next Steps
Habakkuk 2 - Waiting

What do you find hardest about waiting?  In what circumstances do you find waiting to be the most difficult?

Read Habakkuk 2
What can you do this week to make room for God to speak?  What can you turn off?  How and where can you create silence?

Read Psalm 46.
How can this entire psalm help you learn to be still.

Write down some ways you have seen God move in your life and answer prayers.  Use these as an anchor for your faith in times of doubt and more questions.

Journal both your questions and the words you hear from God.  Try it for a week and see if it helps you listen better, or gives you confidence that what you hear is from God.

Act on what you hear and allow God to confirm His word.

If you are still asking questions and experiencing pain and doubt, know that you are not alone and that it is ok to question God.  Read some of these psalms of lament:  Psalms 52-60, 64, 70, 71, 74, 77, 79, 80, 83, 85, 86, 89, 90, 94

Hope In The Dark - Habakkuk 1

My grandmother was one of the healthiest people I have known.  Every day, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, she would swim in the cold waters of Long Island Sound.  She ate well, she was active, and she was faithful to God, her family, and her friends.  She was smart, a voracious reader, and did crossword puzzles every day.  In her 80’s she had a hip replacement and came through the surgery well, but had a stroke in the days that followed.  Her stroke took away her ability to communicate.  She could neither read nor talk.  In the days that followed, I asked myself, why God?  Why have one of the most active and intelligent women I know, a woman whose life revolves around reading and conversation, why allow her to suffer a stroke that takes away those things she loved the most?  Maybe you have asked questions like that.

When I was a pastor in Altoona, I was asked to do a funeral for a 3 year old boy who drowned in a pool when his mother left him for just a moment.  Again I found myself asking God why.  When you could have done something to change this situation, why didn’t you act?  Through the years I have asked God why He didn’t heal innocent and Godly people when the entire church had been praying for them.  Why did bad things happen to faithful people and why didn’t God step in more often to help those of his children in need.  Maybe you have asked questions like that. 

These days we are asking similar questions.  If God is all powerful, why do we see innocent children killed in drive-by shootings?  Why do we still see injustice and prejudice take away life on our streets?  God, why won’t you stop the spread of COVID-19?  Why don’t you stop famines, drought, disease and war when we are praying for life and health and peace? 

If you have ever asked these kinds of questions, you need to know that you are not alone.  If you are asking these kinds of questions today, then I hope you will join us for the next few weeks as we learn some deep spiritual truths from a man who asked these same questions 600 years before Jesus. 
His name was Habakkuk, some say Ha-bak-kuk, and others say Hab-a-kuk, but however you say it, his message is timely. 

The book of Habakkuk is found at the end of the Old Testament in a section called the Minor Prophets.  They are not minor because their message is not important, it’s just that their writings are not long.  Most of these prophets wrote during a time when the people of Israel were experiencing corruption and injustice internally, and oppression and persecution externally.  The people of God had drifted far from the life God had for them, and the nation of Israel and Judah were being attacked by enemies from both the north and south.  It was a confusing and chaotic time for God’s people. 

What’s important to know about the work of these prophets, and really all the prophets we find in the Bible, is that they were not people who would predict the future, they simply spoke God’s message to His people with power and authority.  When the prophets spoke they usually said something like, Thus saith the Lord…. And then they would give God’s message. 

Habakkuk, however, was different.  Habakkuk didn't speak God’s word to the people, he spoke the people’s words to God.  Habakkuk said to God all the things that the people in those days wanted to say, and in many ways he speaks for us today. 

Habakkuk 1:2-4
How long, 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 wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me; 
There is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

Habakkuk is asking God why He has not answered the cry of his people.  If God is good, why does He allow wrongdoing and evil?  If God is just, why does He tolerate injustice?  If God cares about and wants peace, why is there so much violence?  Either God doesn’t care, or God isn’t fair.  These are the questions that Habakkuk is asking. 

And these are the questions we are asking. 
● God, don’t you care that I’m in danger of losing my job and won’t be able to provide for my family?  
● God, it’s not fair that I have done everything possible to take care of myself physically and now I am having to undergo all these tests to find out what is wrong with me.
● God, I have been faithful in my marriage and I have given my spouse so much, I don’t understand why they are leaving.    
● God, where are you when we see injustice, protests, division, and violence in our nation?  

The questions Habakkuk asked so many years ago are the questions we are still asking today, which leads us to perhaps the single most important lesson to learn from the book of Habakkuk:
It is always OK to ask God questions. 

That Habakkuk’s words are included in the Bible shows us that God is ok with us asking difficult questions.  When we are wondering where God is, or what God is doing, or if God is still with us and still loves us, it is always ok to be honest and ask Him.  When my grandmother got sick, I asked God why.  When I wrestled with what I was doing with my life, I asked God where He was and where He wanted me to go.  When I have had to watch faithful people suffer and innocent children die, I have said to God that it just doesn’t seem fair.  God, why did you not step out to help people more often?

The power of Habakkuk’s words being part of the scriptures is that it shows us that it is always ok to question God.  It is always ok to cry out to God.  God is big enough and strong enough to handle our questions.  God is patient enough to deal with our uncertainty, and loving enough to endure our wavering faith.  It is always ok to ask God questions.  In fact, God would rather us question him than turn away from him.  God would rather us yell at him than walk away in silence never to return. 

One third of the psalms are laments, or cries to God asking him where he is, and why He hasn’t done anything, and when He will help.  I’m not sure where the idea came from that we can’t question God because the Bible is full of people who questioned God.  Jesus, in a moment of pain questioned God.  From the cross Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Where are you?  This isn’t fair?  Have you forgotten me?  Have you stopped loving me?  Why God? Why?  When we think that we can’t question God, our questions will drive us away, but when we know it is ok to question God, those questions can draw us closer. 

Habakkuk asked God questions, and God answered, but the answers actually created more questions. 

Habakkuk 1:5-6.
Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.  I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own.

What God is saying here is that in response to the injustice that Habakkuk sees among God’s people, God is going to raise up their enemy to sweep over them.  God is going to use even more evil people to pass judgement on evil people.  Well this doesn’t seem fair?  In fact, this makes no sense at all.  This raises more questions for Habakkuk but instead of turning away, Habakkuk turns toward God. 

Habakkuk turned toward God and did two things, he embraced God and wrestled with God.  The name Habakkuk means to embrace and to wrestle, and if you think about it, to wrestle someone you have to embrace them, you have to be willing to get close and hold on to them.  And that is exactly what Habakkuk did.  He embraced God and he continued to ask questions and wrestle with God. 

Habakkuk 1:12-13
Lord, are you not from everlasting?
My God, my Holy One, you will never die.
You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment;
you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish.
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

Habakkuk embraced God by affirming God’s greatness.  God is the Holy One who is from everlasting to everlasting.  God is the rock on which all things have been set.  Habakkuk embraces the goodness of God’s character, but then he honestly wrestles with God’s decisions.  Why do you tolerate evil?  Why are you going to use those who are evil to swallow up those who are good? 

Habakkuk’s response to God leads us to the second big idea we need to learn from Habakkuk, don’t let your doubts drive you from God, let them draw you closer to God.  We can’t allow the problems and fears and questions we have to push us from God when they can actually be the means by which God can pull us closer.  When children come to us with questions or problems or fears, do we push them away or pick them up and embrace them?  We embrace them.  We may not be able to answer their questions, or remove their fear, and our response might not make them happy, but we can hold them tight while they struggle. 

God wants to hold us tight as we struggle.  God wants to embrace us as we wrestle.  The answers we are looking for might not come today.  The problems might not be resolved tomorrow, or next week, and we might not like the answers at all, but God will always be there for us and we can always be honest about our doubts and fears and questions.  In fact, it can be those very questions and doubts and fears that can deepen our faith. 

James 1:2-4. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Questions, doubts, fears, and frustration aren’t joyful or fun times to go through and they have the potential to drive us away from God, but they can also be the very tools by which God will help us deepen our faith and trust.  It is always OK to question God and we need to allow those questions to draw us closer to God.  Let me end with this quote from Craig Groeschel who wrote a book about the message of Habakkuk called, Hope in the Dark. 

What if honestly acknowledging your doubts is the first step toward building a deeper faith? What if embracing your secret questions opens the door for a maturing knowledge of God’s character? What if becoming closer to God, developing genuine intimacy with him, requires you to bear that which feels unbearable? To hear him through an ominous utterance, to trust him in the moment of doom, to embrace his strength when you’re weak with a burden? What if it takes real pain to experience deep and abiding hope?

This is where many of us are today.  We are asking questions.  We are wondering where God is, and what God is doing.  Things don’t seem right, or fair, and while we keep on praying - things seem to just get worse.  We can turn away from God or we can literally be Habakkuk and turn toward God.  We can wrestle and ask questions, and as we do we can embrace God and find in him hope in the dark.




Next Steps
Hope In The Dark

Why can it feel uncomfortable to question God?

How do you think questioning God can strengthen your faith?

Read Habakkuk Chapter 1.
Describe a time when you found yourself wrestling with God.

During a time that was (or is) difficult, how did you (or do you)
continue to embrace God in the middle of the trial?

Who do you have around you to pray with you and support
you? How can they be praying for you right now?

Be bold and pray with power: 
“God, yes, we have questions for You, but we also embrace You. Help us, Father, to overcome the pain, doubt, and unbelief we’re facing. We are choosing to trust You. We are choosing to accept the hope You’ve given us through Jesus. We love You. Amen.”

Identify some things you might need to wrestle with God over so you can embrace His love for you.  What questions, doubts, and disappointments do you need to share with God?

Ask someone to pray and stand with you as you let your pain,
doubts, and difficulties drive you to God.

One third of the Psalms are cries to God.  Read some of these this week: 
Psalms 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 36, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44.