Hello Sweet Friends,
Today’s Reading … Habakkuk 1-3 and Jeremiah 41-50
“How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” (Habakkuk 1:1a). Habakkuk’s honesty with God is refreshing. When we are in difficult situations, it can feel like God is not taking action on our behalf, certainly not as quickly as we think that he should be! What do you in this instance? Do you take matters into your own hands, hide under the covers, call a good friend and vent? Habakkuk offers a different path, in all of his difficulties, Habakkuk goes to the Lord in prayer and waits patiently for His answer. Hmmm…. that does seem better.
Habakkuk had every reason to be upset. He was a contemporary of Jeremiah and was in Babylon with the people of Judah. Evil was rampant, the righteous were oppressed and the people were living in sin. It is easy to justify our behavior based on our surroundings; we are not gossiping, we are sharing a prayer request – we are not judging, we are observing – we are not skipping church every Sunday, just for baseball tournaments (ouch that one hurts!) Remember, God is the only one with perfect discernment. We cannot even trust our own hearts, they will deceive us and we will justify any sin that we want to keep. Habakkuk did not form a committee or call a meeting to deal with these problems, He went straight to God, the only One who can be trusted to always point us to Truth.
God was faithful to answer Habakkuk’s cry. God reassured Habakkuk that He was not indifferent to His people. He challenged Habakkuk to look beyond the present and He revealed His plan to his prophet. Habakkuk was terrified by the plan that God revealed to him. He was going to use the Babylonians to punish the people of Judah, and Habakkuk could not understand. Neither can we. As we have established, God’s ways are higher than ours and comprehension is not the goal. The goal is trust.
Habakkuk remained in the presence of the Lord. Another beautiful discipline, he did not run quickly from his time with God, he lingered, realizing that God was the only place He would find peace amidst the chaos of the world and of his own heart. Eventually, God’s glory appeared to Habakkuk and he understood, not the Lord’s plan, but that he could trust God implicitly. He realized that while God cannot always give us satisfactory answers because of our finite minds, He can always be trusted because of His infinite grace and wisdom.
In our desire to “Keep God First,” let’s take and implement these spiritual disciplines from the 3 chapters of this amazing powerful book:
1. Take your concerns to God, first and always.
2. Look beyond the present.
3. Linger in the presence of God.
Love you all,
Kinsee
“so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return empty, but accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it”(Isaiah 55:11)
