I want to tell you about Paul - got to know him some years ago through a function we were both involved in. He was a sensitive fellow. Always the first to rush to the aid of someone he knew was in need. Paul worked in the field of health care and was appreciated by all who came to know him. Never harsh with his clients. Willing to give them extra time, no matter how busy the schedule. Treating them with great dignity and care.

Somewhere along the way, however, it all bubbled over. Maybe he’d seen just one too many people die after extended periods of suffering. Maybe it was simply the number of people in need that crossed his path. Maybe he got too tired. Maybe his sensitive spirit had been rubbed raw just once too often. Maybe......
        Well, ultimately, I’m not quite sure what all happened inside. I’m not sure he’d even be able to articulate it.

But he announced to me one day - "I’ve decided that I don’t believe in God any more. I’ve given up."
        "Just like that? You mean, quite believing?"
        "Yes. I can’t believe any more. It’s too much to accept. If God exists, and if God really is so powerful and loving, then it doesn’t seem possible that there would be so much suffering still happening.....
                There’s so much. And they don’t deserve it.
                Why would it be?
                No. I can’t accept it."

Paul wrestled with God, and with the pain that stared him in the face every day. He couldn’t make sense of it. So threw his hands up and walked away.

I suspect that there are very few of us who haven’t wrestled with God somewhere along the way. Maybe not to the degree Paul did. And not with his outcome. But wrestled nonetheless.
        Is that legitimate – As a Christian is it OK to throw up your hands to heaven and shout out your questions? Is it OK to be unsure? Is it OK to get angry at God? Is it OK to challenge Him?

And - in that whole process, what do you do with it? What are the odds of coming to some sort of satisfactory resolution; some hope of being able to sing again "It is well with my soul"?

Tonight we’re going to meet someone who would fully understand what Paul’s struggle was all about. His name indicates what was happening inside. Folks called him, "Habakkuk." It means - "to embrace." Only, not the sort of embrace that one finds in affection. It’s a wrestler’s grip - hanging on and twisting in the hopes of winning.
        Habakkuk is the prophet who wrestled with God.

He stands in a biblical tradition of wrestlers.
        Job, the upright man who suffered, wrestled with God in his pain and grief. You can read his experience in the book by that name.
        Jacob, the wiley conniving cheat, wrestled with God about his future. Genesis tells us his story.
        David, the king who truly wanted to do good but fell victim to temptation, wrestled with God in the whirlwind of his throneroom experiences. The Book of Psalms, for example 38 and 64. Psalm 38 is a cry of deep pain, and offers no hope, no resolution. Just pain. Psalm 64 begins - "Hear me, O God, as I voice my complaint...." David is accompanied in his wrestling by fellow song writers, the sons of Korah. In Psalm 43 they throw up their hands to heaven and cry, "Why..... why have you rejected me?? Why must I go about mourning....?"

Wrestling with God, trying to shake an answer out of Him.
Tonight we share in Habakkuk’s wrestling.

As in previous weeks, we’re going to begin by placing ourselves within the Bible. Habakkuk is one of the 12 minor prophets, the last books of the Old Testament. We’ve been learning their names. Please join me in saying them:

Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
Habakkuk.
 

Habakkuk the man lived around the time of the prophet Jeremiah, sometime around 600BC. Egypt, Assyria and Babylon were the world powers. All of them terrifying. All of them brutal. All of them at one time or another a threat to the safety of God’s people in Israel and Judah.
        There was another threat. It came from within Judah. There was rampant corruption, injustice and whole scale immorality to the point where you didn’t know who to trust, or where it was safe. The one with the biggest stick was the winner in those days.

        It was an aweful situation. An aweful situation that seemed endless.
        On and on and on......
        If you tried to lived right, you ended up getting stepped on or shoved to the side. Those who honestly tried to honour God in their lives were a small minority.
        The colour you’d use to paint the situation would be a very dark grey. Maybe even black.

It wounds the spirit of Habakkuk.
Finally he can’t take it any longer, throws up his hands in desperation, and lets heaven know exactly how he’s feeling.

It’s recorded in the first chapter of his book.
Let’s read it:

One word summarizes the whole chapter -
        "WHY?????"
                Why do you make me look at injustice?
                Why do you tolerate wrong?
                Why do you tolerate the treacherous?
                Why are you silent?

In the middle of his questioning, God says, "Stand back and watch. You won’t believe what I’m about to do."
        And the Lord is right. Habakkuk doesn’t believe it. God says He’s going to use evil people to conquer evil.
        It makes no sense.

At least....... it makes no sense as far as Habakkuk can figure.
And he doesn’t mind telling God that, either.

Why????
        Why did my mother spend her final years in such a degraded state?
        Why did that innocent child die at the hands of an abuse?
        Why can’t I find satisfying work?

What’s your "why" question to God?

James Dobson says that it’s the confusion over "why" that so often shreds a person’s faith to bits. He’s right.
        [Dobson, When God Doesn’t Make Sense]

God seems silent. He just doesn’t come through like we hoped He would.
We become Christians...... but life DOESN’T take any turns for the better. In fact, some times the heat seems to get cranked up. And sometimes people like Paul can’t take it any more and walk away in frustration.
Habakkuk doesn’t walk away.
Rather - after being ripe royally honest with God, he stands back and says, "I’m waiting, Lord. I’m waiting for your answer."
        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. (2.1)

The Lord does answer. It’s recorded in chapter 2.
Let’s read that together -

After telling the prophet to sharpen his pencil and make sure that the following words get carefully recorded and told to everyone who will listen, there are some very important words – important to Habakkuk. Important to Paul if he’s ever going to come through his struggle. Important to you and me as we fling our "why" questions to heaven.

2.4 ".....but the righteous will live by his faith....."
Those of you who study the New Testament some, will probably recognize these words as being the same ones picked up by St.Paul in the beginning of his letter to the Romans, 1.17, "the righteous will live by faith."

There are, ultimately, only two attitudes which we can take towards life.
        The first attitude says that the only things which really matter, which I will put any stock in and depend on and be satisfied with, are those items which I can figure out. The stuff that makes sense to me I’ll put in my personal inventory. Everything else goes out with the trash.

        The second attitude admits that there are going to be mysteries in life. Doesn’t mean I’m going to go through life with my brain shifted into neutral or low. Doesn’t mean I won’t tackle hard questions, or be willing to look at things I once thought to be final. It simply means that I realize I am only so big. My understanding can take in only so much. My vision of the landscape of life goes only so far. Beyond that – well, I’m simply going to have to trust someone or something else.
        Eyes wide open. Brain fully engaged. But realizing that I can’t live life on what resources I can muster. I’m going to have to lean on another. Trust another. Depend on another........
                Have faith in another.

I remember some years ago, flying into St.John’s Newfoundland. It was late May, and typical St.John’s weather. Bit of snow mixed in with cold rain. Biting wind. And fog. Thick fog. The plane circled the airport. At least, I think it did. Couldn’t tell because the fog was so thick. Eventually it started to go down. All we could see were the banks of mist rushing past the airplane windows. Everyone buckled in. Plane kept going. At about 50 or so feet off the tarmac we came out of the fog and into the rain..... boom. Down onto the ground. Reverse thrusters. And we pulled up, safely, to the terminal.
        That was one of the wierdest, knuckle-whitening experiences in a plane I’ve ever been on. Even a couple of the flight attendants looked like they might be ready for a "Screech In" just about then.
        The only reason that plane ever made it safely to the ground was because the pilot – fully trained, intelligent, sober individual...... at least I hope he was sober at the time –
                The pilot depended on, trusted..... had faith..... in his instruments and the instructions from St.John’s flight control centre.
                They could see what he couldn’t. They knew where he was relative to the ground, the runway, the terminal. They could tell his speed and angle. Just by looking and trying to figure it out himself, he’d never be able to do these things.
The pilot flew.... by faith.

The Lord says to Habakkuk – I want you to put faith in me.
The rest of chapter two faces the issue of injustice and evil head-on. The Lord tells Habakkuk that’s He’s not lost control. The reins of the Cosmos have not slipped out of His holy hands. He’s still on course.
You may not understand it, Habakkuk.
You may not see the full picture.
You’ll have to trust me on this one.

And Habakkuk, finally, does. He writes an amazing song - tune of shigionoth.
It’s recorded in ch.3.
Let’s read it ----

Habakkuk gets hold of the present situation that seems so out of control by remembering other times in history when things seemed out of control, but God came through. Like rescuing Israel from Egypt with plagues (v.5). Rescuing them from Pharaoh’s army through the Red Sea and later into Canaan through the Jordan river (v.10).

The Air Canada pilot didn’t have an unthinking blind faith in his instruments. He’d seem them work. He knew they had a good track record.

Habakkuk didn’t have an unthinking blind faith in the Lord. He remembered that God has acted in time and space. This is the kind of God we worship and trust -- the God who actually moves in human history to accomplish events that no man can duplicate. As the prophet thinks of all this, his mind goes out to the greatness of God. And he surrenders his concerns.

Not that he understands.
Not that the pain is any less.
But in the midst of his pain, He’s counting on God coming through:

"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, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on to the heights." (3.17-18)

That’s the faith which is held out for us to grasp.

And in the times when our grip starts to weaken, when we’re wondering whether we can put stock in the words of the Holy One who says, "Trust me" –
        – in those times, when we doubt God’s power and God’s love, we look to the cross.

For there we see God’s greatest action imaginable. Willing to enter our situation. Willing to enter death’s realm, and beat death at its own game. Willing to do this for us.
        When Jesus hung on the cross, it didn’t make sense, either.
        To His disciples, it seemed like everything was lost.
                Game over.
                But it was precisely then that God was doing His greatest work.

Can you believe that?
Can you believe that it is still so?
That God continues to work..... even when it seems hopeless?
        In this season of Lent, look to the cross where Jesus struggled in pain.
        Sense the darkness that was His.
        And - without getting stuck there - be ready to look beyond that to Easter, where the stone was rolled back, and an empty grave revealed for all the world to see.
        Look to that and ask – "If death couldn’t dominate Him, what can?"

Jesus said, "In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world." (John 16.33)

Indeed – take heart!