Where God Is

I don’t know what your relationship is like with the Lord, but usually when I get frustrated and upset with Him, He tends to

show me I’m proud and have idolatry. In the end, what I feel like I was walking in and what I think we all get caught in is that we tend to walk in this thing, whether we would say this or not, we believe that God owes us certain things. / We believe that if we do A and B, God gives us what we want and what we think we should have and He works it out like we think we should have it.

So here’s how I see it over and over again here at church. Somebody will lose their job and say, “God’s got me. He’s going to take care of me. He’s going to provide for me.” And at the three month mark, they’re like, “Where’s the provision?” And then at the 6-7 month mark, they’re like, “What, are You serious?” And at the 10 month mark, they’re angry. Like, “Where are You in this?” Or we find that one, we find that woman, we find that man, we get married. This is a gift from God, the one that God ordained before the foundation of the earth that we would spend the rest of our lives with, and then a year in, five years in, ten years in we’re going, “Maybe this girl’s from the devil...Maybe this dude has been given to me by Satan to try to destroy me.” You’ve got this thing, so you’re like, “Alright, what’s the deal?” / Or the Myers who’ve gone as missionaries, and they got there and there were some very difficult things that came at them very quickly. So here they are serving the Lord in a difficult place and you’ve got these difficult things happening, and you’ve got to be saying, “If anyone should be safe from this kind of stuff, it’s people who have left the comfort of rural South Dakota to go to a difficult place to serve You. If somebody should be exempt from frustrations and difficulties, it’s them.”

No matter how good our theology is, no matter what we know of the Bible and what life has taught us, we just can’t help but believe that we know how our lives play out. / And we really believe that because we’re good people who are good church attendees, then God’s going at it this way, this way and this way./ So when it doesn’t happen that way - it shakes us and confuses us.

Habakkuk is asking the big questions of, “Why?”, “How long will you take God?” and, “Where are You God?” He’s intentionally trying to provoke God. People who want to box with God though, don’t have long enough arms. So now we come to Habakkuk 2 and Habakkuk is taking cover, (READ 2:1) All right. Habakkuk is waiting just like Moses and just like Elijah for God to answer.

Have you ever been at your proverbial wit’s end? Not knowing what will happen? All options have run their course? Like when I was a sophomore in college I got into some debt through a book selling job which incidentally was the scene where I came to Christ. I got into some debt and in that contract I had a cosigner which wasn’t my parents but my friend’s parents. Long story short, I was trying to make money to pay that back and there wasn’t enough to pay back before that family got into legal trouble with what I/they owed. I was at my wit’s end. So I started trying to work more and make more money. Obvious solution right? Still not enough before the lawyer started knocking on the door.

As a last ditch effort before I resorted to selling blood, I tried out to be a back-up singer on the East Coast for some southern gospel artists during the summer. A guy who told me about it really didn’t think I was going to make it but…I got the spot. And yes, they paid well. And I was able to get out from under that debt. How many restless nights did I have trying to figure out the debt situation? How guilty did I feel about putting this family through that as well? But God came through. And He came through in a away that encouraged my faith and that was totally outside my own resources or way of doing things. Seriously, me and southern gospel was like AC/DC backing up the Gaithers. But it worked and I like the Gaithers now. Weird as that is for a recovering Prince fan. No, I don’t listen to that garbage anymore.

The deal is this, only by a divine revelation can the mysteries of life and God be understood. When we’re at our wit’s end, God’s mysteries are beginning to be revealed. Here is one of those mysteries, (READ vv. 2-4). God’s answer will not lie, in the end it will speak. What God is telling Habakkuk is not just for Israel but for the end of all generations to come. But we must wait for Him to come.