I didn’t post yesterday (Tuesday) out of respect to my Boston running bloggy friends. But I still wanted to take a moment to talk about it.
In these moments we start to wonder what is this world coming to? What is going on that we could ruin something so inoccent as people running a race, or people sitting in their chairs at work? It causes many of us to rethink our faith in a ‘good god.’
Just this past Sunday my Pastor preached on the book of Habakkuk. Its only 3 chapters long and goes a little something like this:
Habakkuk Complaining–> The Lord’s Answer –> Habakkuck Complaining again –> The Lord’s Answer –> Habakkuck’s Prayer
What I find very interesting is the topic of Habakkuck’s complaints, in his first complaint he brings up the injustice all around him and asks WHY?
3 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.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.Habakkuck 1:3-4a NIV
The Lord’s response is almost maddening (my paraphrase here) I’ve got it undercontrol. I’m already working on it, you just can’t see it, you don’t know what I have in store for those who cause destruction and violence.
Then again Habakkuck pleads:
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
Habakkuck 1:13b
Then the Lord responds again (my paraphrase:) Woah to you who do evil your time is coming.
Habakkuck ends this exchange with a prayer:
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
to come on the nation invading us.
17 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,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.Habakkuck 3:16b-18
The timing of this sermon is crazy to me, Why God do you let bad things happen? Why do you let them go unpunished? He dosen’t but His punishment, His wrath is not ours, its not in the way or the timing that we expect. Yet we rejoice in the Lord, in God our Savior. That is faith. Faith that He is in control even when we can’t see it. Faith that these bad things don’t affect our salvation.
In the words of Patton Oswalt “But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. ” Read the full quote here. I don’t agree with every word he says, but I do agree with his quote as a whole!