A few years ago I received one of those tests that Fathers get into trying to be a good “Dad.” We were living in KY at that time, and on that day I had to travel to Scottsburg, IN for a lunch meeting. Trent was in pre-school at the time, except it wasn’t in session that day so I decided I would be a model dad and take him with me. The 1-1/2 hour return trip was pretty uneventful with Trent sleeping off his Ponderosa lunch. But the trip up there was a real learning experience, for both of us.
Trent was really in one of those “question asking” moods. He was learning. Before we even got in the car he had already asked where and why we were taking a trip. In the car he asked about what seemed like every word the radio announcer said. He asked about the airplanes we saw. He asked about a billboard we saw with Dracula on it. “Is he a mean guy?” It was around Halloween, and in Ponderosa he saw a skeleton hanging from the ceiling. “What is that?” “It’s a skeleton, Trent. That is what all your skin is hanging on.” (Look at arm, then back at skeleton) “Is he a mean guy?” “Yea, Trent, he’s mean.” We got back into the car and headed out. Instead of taking the interstate, I went a different way on a back road. “Daddy, why do we say ‘we?’” After asking him to repeat the question, I had to put some deep thought into that one. “Well, son, ‘we’ is a word that talks about ‘us.’ By ourselves it’s just you or me, but if we are together we say ‘we.’” I was pretty impressed with how well I had answered a relatively difficult question. But from the look on Trent’s face, he wasn’t impressed. He was puzzled. “No, Daddy. Why do we say ‘we’? You know, “wee?” I thought about it for a minute and realized that I must have been driving faster than I thought. “I don’t know, Trent.”
It seems that we are born with a thirst to know, and the only way we know how to quench our thirst is by asking questions. We don’t ever lose that urge to ask. When we are young the questions are more the questions of curiosity. “Why is the sky blue?” “Why do I have to eat that broccoli?” When we get older our questions seem to go deeper. They take on more urgency, and they are often asked out of a painful situation.
Read the Bible and you will find a lot of people asking big questions. A childless couple facing an unfulfilled promise ask “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” Hear the desperation in those words as Abraham expects the answer to be no. When everything has fallen apart, his health, his family, his personal fortune; When there is nothing left Job can’t help but ask “Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again?”
After being ridiculed by a priest, denounced by his family, rejected by his friends, and having other respected prophets contradict and laugh at him, Jeremiah asks a tough question. “Why was I even born?”
In the face of a storm that threatened to take their life, the disciples in a small boat find Jesus asleep and awaken him with the question, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
If you look closely you will notice something about those questions. The ones asked in the face of unfulfilled promises or personal tragedy. The questions that are on our lips when difficult people try to steal our joy, or when we are facing immanent danger, or even when we face undeserved punishment. When times get tough, people start directing their questions to God.
Right in the middle of that tradition of questioning God stands the prophet Habakkuk. His work is different from every other writing prophet in the history of Israel. What makes it different is that he never says a word to another person. Habakkuk is some-body with a few questions for God, and he’s not shy about asking.
The book opens with a question of frustration. “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?” The situation during Habakkuk’s life was difficult. As he looks around at the way the world is, the injustice and pain that are a natural part of life, he asks God why He doesn’t do something. (Pause)
Have you ever felt that way? In the wake of a personal tragedy, or when you were waiting for some good thing to happen and the only thing that keeps happening is bad stuff, have you ever just wanted to try to wake God up? “Come on God, don’t you see I’m dying here? Why don’t you do something?”
Tim Hansel was about as active a person as anyone could be. He lived in Central California and his passion was mountain climbing. He loved it so much that he made his work leading mountain climbing expeditions. But one day in 1973 around dusk when the snow-covered mountain turned to ice, Tim fell and suffered an injury that would cripple him for the rest of his life. It wasn’t that he would be bound by a wheel chair, he wasn’t. He could move around fine. But his spine was unalterably damaged so that every movement gave him excruciating pain. Pain so intense that it shook him to the core of his being.
Tim spent several years questioning God. “Why did this have to happen to me? Why don’t you take away the pain?” As you can imagine, the longer Tim lived with the pain the more intense the questions got. But then after a couple of years, Tim’s questions began to be answered. As you read through his journal, you can get glimpses into the answers that God was giving him.
Winter 75. “Perhaps this is the ultimate realization--when we recognize that all questions have the same answer that comes from you, O Lord, from you.”
Spring 76. “At times I whisper in the night: “God I’ve learned enough now! I’m ready for the next test.”
Summer 76. “Learning patience. . . takes a lot of patience.”
“What a test of character adversity is. It can either destroy or build up, depending on our chosen response. Pain can either make us better or bitter.”
Spring 78. “If your security is based on something that can be taken away from you--you will constantly be on a false edge of security.”
As you read through Hansel’s struggles, you find that his words are a parallel to those of Habakkuk. Habakkuk questioned why God let pain and evil continue on earth. When God answers and explains that he is going to punish the wickedness of Israel by allowing the Babylonians to destroy the southern Kingdom, Habakkuk is not any more satisfied. Now he struggled with why God could use the most ruthless and terrible people, the infamous Babylonians, to judge the Jewish nation who were at least more godly than the Babylonians. As you read through the text, you can’t help but realize that Habakkuk didn’t receive all of the answers he was searching for. But through the process of his questions, he did come to a conclusion that empowered him to move on. In 3:19 he wrote, “The Sovreign Lord is my strength! He will make me as surefooted as a deer and bring me safely over the mountains.” What changed between the questions and the affirmation of confidence in God was a realization that he came to in chapter 2.
It comes in 2:4. The Righteous will live by his faith.
These words are words that Paul latched onto as he explained how to live as a Christian. He quotes the passage in Romans 1:17, and the Hebrew author quotes it again in Hebrews 10:38. But this New Testament idea is rooted all the way back in Habakkuk. Righteous people live by faith. Do you realize what that means? It means that people who truly follow God trust Him enough to be obedient, even when life doesn’t make sense.
- When you feel like you have been betrayed, remember “The righteous live by faith.” That means that you trust God enough to be able to forgive like he tells you to.
- When you watch as somebody gets ahead by doing wrong, remember “The righteous live by faith.” That means that you don’t do the same thing they are doing in order to catch up, but you continue to do what is right, knowing by faith that God will reward your obedience.
- When you are being controlled by a habit that is overpowering you, remember “The righteous live by faith.” That means that you trust God enough that you know He will give you the strength to exhibit some self-control.
What are the struggles that are in your life? Let’s take a lesson from Habakkuk. Let me encourage you to turn your struggles into questions for God. Sometimes we have been taught that it is impolite to ask God any questions. It almost seems sac-religious to question God. But we need to realize that is not true. Trent doesn’t ask me questions because he doubts me. He asks because He believes I know the answer. In a few years he will quit asking me questions because he will think he knows more than I do. There are a lot of people who are there with God. They don’t ask God their questions because they believe they know more than He does. I can’t tell you how many people I have spoken with who believe God should be answerable to them instead of recognizing that they are answerable to God.
But if we are people of faith, who want to live by faith, we are going to ask questions of God. We would do well to stand in the company of other great people of faith like Abraham and Jeremiah, Job and the disciples, and even Jesus. Those who live by faith have enough trust that God knows the answers to life’s toughest questions that they aren’t afraid to ask. James tells us, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt…”
I don’t know of any time when I have felt less wise than in times of personal tragedy. Many of you have heard me recount the difficult time our family went through nearly 13 years ago. It was a time when it seemed that our world spun completely out of control. Pam was 8 months pregnant when we moved from one ministry to another. In the next 2 months I was forced to resign from that ministry, my first child was born, my grandmother died, and my father was suffering from a cancerous tumor that finally ended his life. At the end of that 2 months I had lost 2 family members, I was out of the ministry and not terribly interested in getting back into it, and I had my first child. Really, to that point my life had been relatively easy. I have to tell you, the next 2 years there were a lot of questions. I can’t say that I was a picture of faithfulness during that time. There was a whole lot of anger and struggling with the pain of rejection. And I sure wouldn’t want to go back and relive those painful years. But as I look back at my life, honestly, I wouldn’t want to go through life without those difficult times either. (Pause)
Much of who I am today was forged during those years. Pam, Hannah and I joined a church that just loved us back to spiritual health. I became a deacon, and learned what the church looked like from the other side of the pulpit. I taught a Sunday School class and began my Seminary education. Those times were difficult because I struggled with who I was, and what God wanted me to do. Often I was frustrated, discontent and angry with my circumstances. But God never gave up on me, and He never chastised me for questioning Him. You see, God is secure enough in who He is to not be offended by our questions. That’s not always true of people in our world. Sometimes when people are unsure of themselves, or insecure about something, they are offended by people questioning them. That makes us cautious and sometimes afraid to ask questions. But that is never the case with God. The supreme being of the universe harbors no insecurity, and He doesn’t fear your questions. He simply desires that you trust that He knows the answers. That’s what it means to “live by faith.”
I look back on those painful years now and realize that I learned a whole lot more than a few skills and a different perspective on church during that time. Those years probably teach me more from hindsight than at the time. But I have come to realize that God is not one who snaps his fingers to immediately fix difficult situations. This is just me thinking, but I think it is born out by what Habakkuk says. There is something valuable in the painful process of overcoming life’s difficulties that would be lost if God magically took care of every painful experience.
Paul wrote in Romans 8 a verse that many have clung to in difficult times. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” But we should never end there. The next verse is very important. “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.” Don’t get lost in the big words. That verse tells us that God is using the things that happen in this life to remake us into the image of Jesus. And how in the world do we think we could ever be like Jesus if we didn’t suffer and have to endure pain. Jesus’ life was one marked by pain and rejection. The culmination of that pain and rejection was the cross that ended His human life and ministry to a close.
Now I can’t help but notice that as the perfect life of the Son of God was coming to an end, even He had a question on His lips. While Jesus was hanging on that cross He turned his eyes heavenward and posed a haunting question. “My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?” I can’t say that I understand all the implications of that question, but I do know this. That wasn’t a question that lacked faith. I know that because the last words He offered up were these, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
There will no doubt be times in life when most of us will question why God allows certain things to happen. My encouragement to you is that during those times, instead of retreating from God and thinking you know His answer, join with Habakkuk and Jeremiah, Abraham and the disciples, and even Jesus himself. Struggle through painful times with the kind of faith that keeps asking the questions to Him. But in the end, join with Habakkuk in the words that he closes his book with.
Habakkuk 3:17-19
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
18yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
19The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.
