Faith: Living without the answers
Greetings one and all! I pray all of you are having a great day.
This past Sunday my dad delivered a wonderful sermon about Habakkuk and his prayer of complaint. In this book, Habakkuk talks to God about Israel and their disobedience to God and what He's going to do about it (vv. 1-4). Then God says, "Don't worry about it. I'm going to send Babylon to capture and punish them" (vv. 5-11). Habakkuk seems to say, "They're worse sinners than Israel is! How can You punish us with those who are worse than us?" (vv. 12-17).
Even when we complain to God, we must still praise and honor Him as God and as Lord of our lives. In 2:4b it says, "...the righteous will live by his faith". No matter what, we must still have faith that God is good, that He knows what He's doing, and trust Him.
All of this makes me think about Job. He had a huge family and lots of possessions. In a span of a couple of hours all of it was taken away (Job 1:13-19). Job is left stunned, but still praises God in all of this. In chapter two Job loses his health and gets boils (2:1-10). At some point he tells God, "we need to talk about this. i am being treated unfairly here. let's talk this thing out". In chapter 38 God begins to talk to Job. In verse 2 it begins with, "Who is this that darkens my counsel, with words with out knowledge. Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me". And on it goes. In all of it God doesn't tell Job why all of this happened to him. Even if God told him, he wouldn't have understood it. In fact he probably would have questioned more.
All of you who are parents, when your children are young, they ask, "why this?" or "why that?". A lot of times they won't understand while they are little. So you say, "because I said so" and they have to live with that answer until they can understand. God is the ultimate "because I said so". There are so many things out there that we will never understand. We will have to make due with that answer.
Faith isn't living with the answers, but learning to live without the answers. That's what real faith is.
God bless! Peace out!
Zack
This past Sunday my dad delivered a wonderful sermon about Habakkuk and his prayer of complaint. In this book, Habakkuk talks to God about Israel and their disobedience to God and what He's going to do about it (vv. 1-4). Then God says, "Don't worry about it. I'm going to send Babylon to capture and punish them" (vv. 5-11). Habakkuk seems to say, "They're worse sinners than Israel is! How can You punish us with those who are worse than us?" (vv. 12-17).
Even when we complain to God, we must still praise and honor Him as God and as Lord of our lives. In 2:4b it says, "...the righteous will live by his faith". No matter what, we must still have faith that God is good, that He knows what He's doing, and trust Him.
All of this makes me think about Job. He had a huge family and lots of possessions. In a span of a couple of hours all of it was taken away (Job 1:13-19). Job is left stunned, but still praises God in all of this. In chapter two Job loses his health and gets boils (2:1-10). At some point he tells God, "we need to talk about this. i am being treated unfairly here. let's talk this thing out". In chapter 38 God begins to talk to Job. In verse 2 it begins with, "Who is this that darkens my counsel, with words with out knowledge. Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me". And on it goes. In all of it God doesn't tell Job why all of this happened to him. Even if God told him, he wouldn't have understood it. In fact he probably would have questioned more.
All of you who are parents, when your children are young, they ask, "why this?" or "why that?". A lot of times they won't understand while they are little. So you say, "because I said so" and they have to live with that answer until they can understand. God is the ultimate "because I said so". There are so many things out there that we will never understand. We will have to make due with that answer.
Faith isn't living with the answers, but learning to live without the answers. That's what real faith is.
God bless! Peace out!
Zack
posted by Zack | 9:19 AM
6 Comments:
THIS IS AWESOME...FAITH IS CHILDLIKE BELIEF IN SOMETHING WE DON'T SEE...I WANT TO HAVE MORE FAITH!
AND JOB...HE SUFFERED ALL HE DID AND STILL WAS FAITHFUL TO THE LORD AND GOD GAVE HIM DOUBLE FOR HIS TROUBLE!
SOME PEOPLE THINK WHEN YOU BECOME A CHRISTIAN YOU HAVE TO GIVE UP EVERYTHING THAT IS IMPORTANT AND FUN BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE..WAITING ON THE LORD AND WANTING WHAT HE WANTS TO GIVE WILL LEAVE YOU FULFILLED AND JOYFUL BEYOND ANYTHING YOU COULD EVER IMAGINE. THROUGH THE TESTING OF OUR FAITH IS WHERE WE GROW THE MOST.
THIS WAS A GREAT POST.
I'm not so sure Job wouldn't have understood God's reason for allowing such terrible things to happen to him. I mean, we the readers get to see behind the curtains and overhear the conversation between God and the accuser (or adversary or whatever the Satan figure is called). That doesn't seem like a terribly complicated chain of events that lead up to Job's downfall.
My interpretation of the book is that there must be some other reason(s) God doesn't answer Job. What do you think about that?
--
All of this is stuff I've been wrestling with over that past year or so. That is, trying to understand how much of God is beyond comprehension and how much is just hard to comprehend.
Zack,
Thanks for sharing your excellent thoughts. I don't tell you often enough how much I admire your faith. I pray God will open doors for you to fulfill your dreams.
Love, dad
Hi Zach!
I heard Katie is getting married! Please send her my congratulations!! We are very happy for her!
We continue to go to the Dallas campus for HOCC, however, both are wonderful locations!
Thanks for keeping up with us!!
Shannon Herman
Hey bud!
Check out www.TheCircleTrilogy.com" if you havent lately.
I love you bro!! Thanks for all the prayers and support. I will be back online in a few weeks if not in a few days live from the hospital. LOVE YOU DUDE!
Chops
www.LAMBJOURNEY.com
Post a Comment
<< Home