This month features excerpts from an article in the June 19, 2003, issue of the Adventist Review, in which Bonita Joyner Shields emphasizes how we are to have faith in God, who is far bigger than our limited understanding and can handle our questions, doubts, frustrations, and fears.
The story is told of a young woman who was at the hospital with her elementary-school-age daughter.1 She had just been told that her daughter was dying. The mother left her daughter in the hospital, walked to her car, rolled the windows up, and began to yell and scream at God. “Why?” she screamed. “Why my little girl?”
On and on this continued, until the mother was totally exhausted. As she fell off to sleep, however, she heard a voice say, “Thank you for talking to Me. It’s been a long time!”
How often we think that all God wants to hear from us is “sanctimonious” language—“You’re so wonderful, Lord; bless So-and-so in the mission field; heal Aunt Miranda”—and confidence that we have all the answers and have no questions for Him. Or when we feel angry, how often we ignore Him because somehow we think that God can’t handle our true emotions.
Yes, God wants to hear praise and worship and adoration. He also wants us to care enough about others to intercede in prayer for them. But He also wants to hear our doubts, our fears, our questions—even our anger.
If we can’t question God, who has all the answers to life’s questions, whom can we question? That He is God is the very reason we can question Him. God is big enough to handle our doubts, our fears, our questions—even our anger. And this, I believe, is the message of Habakkuk.
The Questioning Heart
Habakkuk was a prophet who lived in Judah sometime before the invasion of Jerusalem in 597 B.C. . . . His people were in a period of spiritual crisis—giving their respect and affection to the gods of other nations. They even burned their children in sacrifice to these gods—throwing their babies into the Valley of Hinnom in the same manner that they threw trash into a dump. His people not only sacrificed their children; they sacrificed their morals. Justice was bought by the highest bidder.
The book of Habakkuk reveals a dialogue between the prophet and God. Habakkuk had questions, one of which was Why do the wicked prosper? So he asked God.
Some have said that Habakkuk had little faith because he questioned God. . . . But it wasn’t out of rebellion. . . . Habakkuk just needed assurance that God had not abandoned His people. Just as you and I need assurance that God is there when the world around us would like to convince us otherwise.
Why Do the Wicked Prosper?
“Our Lord, how long must I beg for your help before you listen? How long before you save us from this violence? . . . Why do you allow violence, lawlessness, crime . . . to spread everywhere? Laws cannot be enforced; justice is always the loser” (Hab. 1:2-4, CEV).2 . . .
What do you do when so much unfairness and injustice in this world seem to go unchecked? Whom do you talk to when strife and conflict abound?
The Lord answered the question Habakkuk posed to Him, but I’m not quite sure Habakkuk liked the answer!
I don’t know why God answers some prayers and not others. But I know that God knew my heart, and He knew what I needed.
You May Not Believe This . . .
God told Habakkuk that the Babylonians would be His instrument to send punishment on his nation (verses 5, 6). The Babylonians, a ruthless and impetuous people, were also the most arrogant and proud people on the face of the earth. All they knew was violence. . . . Habakkuk was indignant. . . . This response from God was too incomprehensible for Habakkuk. He had to ask Him another question.
You’ve Got to Be Kidding, Lord!
“You are using those Babylonians to judge and punish others. . . . Don’t sit by in silence while they gobble down people who are better than they are” (verses 12, 13, CEV). . . .
Habakkuk had no idea how God was going to answer his question. How could it be answered? What was God thinking, sending the Babylonians to punish them—His chosen people? Yet even with his questioning heart, Habakkuk was a man of deep faith. He knew the Lord would answer him. He didn’t always like the answers, but he knew God would take him seriously.
This Is My Final Answer
Then the Lord gave Habakkuk a message in the form of a vision, and told him to write it down. He said that it might take a long time to be fulfilled, but keep waiting. It would happen (Hab. 2:2-4).
Then God said something to Habakkuk. You know how some words penetrate deep into your soul so that nothing will erase them. I’m sure that’s how it was with this statement. God said He knew that the Babylonians were arrogant and proud. But, He reminded Habakkuk, His people, the righteous, will live by their faith. Faith in a God who, in spite of what our eyes see in this world that would like to convince us otherwise, is still in control. Faith in a God who, acting in judgment as well as redemption, always acts from the motivation of love. Faith in a God who is bigger than the small box of understanding we place Him in; who can handle our questions, our doubts, our frustrations, our fears—even our anger.
Money was tight around our house when I was 12 years old. Dad and Mom both worked hard, but had four kids and were striving to recover financially from the effects of earlier alcoholism.
I remember the day I overheard my mom and dad talking. Dad needed a coat, but we couldn’t afford one. I got angry. I was going to have a talk with the Man upstairs.
“OK, Lord. My mom and dad have rededicated their lives to You, come back to church, and work hard. Why can’t my dad have a coat? What kind of God are You?”
I then proceeded to challenge God. “OK, You say You’re real. If You’re real, I want You to give my daddy a coat—and I’ll give You a week!” That was on Saturday.
I was lounging on the couch in the living room when my aunt arrived at our house the following Wednesday. She told my mom that a church member’s husband had died, leaving a brand-new coat he never wore that she wanted to give to someone. So my aunt brought it over to see if it would fit my dad.
This exchange was not lost on me. But I sat there for a moment, and then smugly thought to myself, It won’t fit.
My dad came into the room about that time. My aunt helped him try on the coat. It fit perfectly.
I pulled the blanket over my face so no one would see the tears burning my cheeks. So You are real! And You’re big enough to answer the defiant prayer of a 12-year-old.
I don’t know why God answers some prayers and not others. But I know that God knew my heart, and He knew what I needed.
Habakkuk’s Prayer/Our Prayer
In the final chapter of Habakkuk, the prophet breaks out into praise. “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 Savior” (Hab. 3:17, 18, NIV).
Why is Habakkuk praising God? God hadn’t even judged Judah yet, much less judged the Babylonians. Habakkuk probably lived to see the initial fulfillment of his prophecy when Jerusalem was attacked by the Babylonians in 597 B.C., but he wasn’t alive to see the Babylonians conquered. Without even seeing the results of his prophecy, he expressed one of the most beautiful statements of faith in all of Scripture. Why?
Because God is big enough to handle our questions, doubts, fears, frustrations, and anger. “The just shall live by their faith” kept Habakkuk and his people from discouragement and despair and, hopefully, will keep us from discouragement and despair too in the midst of injustice, doubts, questions, and anger.
A sage rabbi once remarked, “You can be angry with God, and you can even yell at God. But just don’t ignore Him.”
In our time of questioning, we must not turn away from but turn toward God.
1 Bonita Joyner Shields, “How Big Is Your God? If We’re Bold Enough to Ask, God Is Big Enough to Answer,” Adventist Review, June 19, 2003, pp. 14-17.
2 Scripture quotations identified CEV are from the Contemporary English Version. Copyright © American Bible Society 1991, 1995. Used by permission.
