Habakkuk 2 (05-Aut-21)
Waiting on God Habakkuk 2 August 21, 2005
BI In the “in between time” the righteous will live by faith…
This past week my wife Sakiko and I did a Costco run. Whenever I’m at Costco, making my way to the check out line, I’m looking for the shortest and fastest moving line. I am scanning the line ups like a quarterback looking for a receiver downfield because I don’t like to wait any no longer than I have to.
No one likes to wait.
If you’re driving, how many of you are bothered when the light turns green and the person in front of you doesn’t move for 2 seconds (Do you say I’m glad for the extra time to meditate, let me try to get into the lotus position?).
We hate to have to wait for something to download on our computer (we don’t yeah! This I need this little moment of inactivity, I think I’ll do some stretching, some jogging on the spot, jumping jacks…)
Most of hate to wait! We see it as a complete waste of time!
But, much of life is about waiting… not just in line ups, in traffic or when we’re downloading something onto our computer, but we also have seasons of waiting. We wai for doors to open, we wait for people, we wait for prayers to be answered, and waiting can be frustrating…
So is waiting just a complete waste of time?
I part the answer to that question as we look at the life of the prophet Habakkuk.
Habakkuk new first hand about waiting.
He lived in about the year 600 B.C. during a time when Judah was filled with violence, evil, and injustice. He cried out, “How long on Lord, How long until you do something about the evil we see all around us?” God replied that he would raise up the Babylonians to judge Judah, but then Habakkuk was incensed that God would raise up a people more evil than the Babylonians to judge Judah and he waited again for God’s reply…
If you have you Bible please turn to Habakkuk 2:
1 I will stand at my watch
and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me,
and what answer I am to give to this complaint.
Habakkuk during a time when he was questioning God’s ways did not turn away from God in anger. Instead he went up to his watchtower, i.e. to a “high place.” He went up to get a greater perspective, and waited for an answer from God.
Listen to God’s reply.
The LORD 's Answer
2 Then the LORD replied:
"Write down the revelation
and make it plain on tablets
so that a herald may run with it.
3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it will certainly come
and will not delay.
4 "See, he is puffed up;
his desires are not upright—
but the righteous will live by their faith—
5 indeed, wine betrays him;
he is arrogant and never at rest.
Because he is as greedy as the grave
and like death is never satisfied,
he gathers to himself all the nations
and takes captive all the peoples.
6 "Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying,
" 'Woe to him who piles up stolen goods
and makes himself wealthy by extortion!
How long must this go on?'
7 Will not your creditors suddenly arise?
Will they not wake up and make you tremble?
Then you will become their prey.
8 Because you have plundered many nations,
the peoples who are left will plunder you.
For you have shed human blood;
you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
9 "Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain,
setting his nest on high
to escape the clutches of ruin!
10 You have plotted the ruin of many peoples,
shaming your own house and forfeiting your life.
11 The stones of the wall will cry out,
and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.
12 "Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed
and establishes a town by injustice!
13 Has not the LORD Almighty determined
that the people's labor is only fuel for the fire,
that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing?
14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.
15 "Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors,
pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk,
so that he can gaze on their naked bodies!
16 You will be filled with shame instead of glory.
Now it is your turn! Drink and let your nakedness be exposed [e]!
The cup from the LORD's right hand is coming around to you,
and disgrace will cover your glory.
17 The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
and your destruction of animals will terrify you.
For you have shed human blood;
you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
18 "Of what value is an idol that someone has carved?
Or an image that teaches lies?
For those who make them trust in their own creations;
they make idols that cannot speak.
19 Woe to him who says to wood, 'Come to life!'
Or to lifeless stone, 'Wake up!'
Can it give guidance?
It is covered with gold and silver;
there is no breath in it."
20 The LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.
The prophet Habakkuk has been waiting for God to judge the people of Judah for all of its violence and injustice and God has told Habakkuk that he will raise up the Babylonians to judge Judah, but Habakkuk then furious that it is the Babylonians who will judge Judah because the Babylonians are more evil than the Judeans.
So, as we’ve seen, Habakkuk goes up to his watchtower and waits for God to say something.
God tells Habakkuk, that while he will use Babylon to judge Judah, but he will in turn also judge Babylon.
God tells Habakkuk that Babylon will be judged for its violence against Judah and we see poetic justice befalls Babylonian: the plunder is plundered vs. 8, the sham-er is shamed (vs. 16), the inflict-er of violence becomes the victim of violence (vs. 17).
Like Habakkuk, we may not see God’s justice at a particular moment in time, but overtime we see God’s justice more clearly. Who have envisioned the powerful, fierce Babylonians falling as she would?
Who could have envisioned some of the tyrants of the world coming to justice in their heyday? But with benefit of hindsight, we see Saddam Hussein caught in little square hide out underground, we see Hitler ending his life in his bunker, we see a Mussolini strung up by his feet.
When there is violence and injustice in the world, God does respond. As we see in Habakkuk, He will do in his time and he may well use a nation that is violent and unjust to judge the violent and unjust nation and this nation used to bring judgment will in turn be also judged.
While Habakkuk’s own people are being killed, pillaged and raped by the Babylonian army, Habakkuk now waits for God to exact judgment on Babylon.
Habakkuk has been given this revelation by God of the coming judgment upon Babylon.
Vs. 3 God says this revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger wait for it, it will certainly come and not delay.
From God’s vantage point the revelation does not delay. John Calvin has pointed out, God sees the future so no matter how far off the revelation is in our time, there’s no delay from God’s perspective.
But from a human perspective, the revelation as the text points out does linger… In fact, lingers for about 66 years (about 66 years after this prophecy Babylon falls).
Habakkuk’s journey with God involved a lot of waiting…
Much of our journey with God is about waiting…
As Andrea Havenor reminded us this summer if you were here, a lot of the Christian life is about is about living in the “not yet.”
Why is this the case?
Part of reason is because God has His own time table. In vs. 3 we read that the revelation awaits an appointed time. God has an appointed time to bring judgment to Babylon.
Sometime we wait because our timing is simply different from God’s timing.
In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel the Poisonwood Bible there’s a scene Leah…why God is allowing the ants to invade their village, and her African teenager, “Says life is not a mathematical equation is which we center.”
Sometime the reason we wait, as was the case with Habakkuk, is because the Lord His time table.
At other times God allows us to wait because he wants to do something deep inside us.
Not just Habakkuk, but everyone one of us here knows what it means to wait from something. To wait for a longing to be fulfilled, a hope to come to pass.
We may be waiting for the door to open to a school, a job, the success of a project, a relationship, marriage, waiting for children, or waiting for them to leave the home…
Or perhaps we’re waiting for guidance or healing or as it was for Habakkuk justice…
As it was for Habakkuk, waiting can be hard for us…
My New Testament professor in seminary, Dr. Scott Hafemann says, “The life of faith is not primarily an experience in which our longings are immediately fulfilled.” The life of faith is a life of expecting what God will do, as we trust him.
The apostle Paul in Romans 8 spoke we know God live with inner longing…
The great African theologian Augustine says:
The entire life of a good Christian is an exercise in holy desire (longing). You do not see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when he (Jesus Christ) comes you may see and be utterly satisfied.
Suppose you are going to fill some holder or container, and you know you will be given a large amount. Then you set about stretching your sack or wineskin or whatever it is. Why? Because you know the quantity you have to put in it, and your eyes tell you there is not enough room. By stretching it, therefore, you increase the capacity of the sack, and this is how God deals with us. Simply by making us wait he increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul, making it able to receive what is to be given to us.
Augustine says while we’re waiting, God is stretching our soul. He’s increasing our capacity for His presence and His joy.
This past summer, my wife and I attended a family reunion in the Bay Area of California. We spent in the Napa Valley, the wine country (show photo).
We took a tour of the Robert Mondavi winery… Ralph our guide explained that certain wines, from the time the grapes are harvested, can take 4 years of waiting until then they’re bottled (show photo to barrels). If it’s a reserve wine say, that’s say bottled and released this year, it may not peak until the year 2020. So from the time those particular grapes it’s may about 19 years for the wine to peak (4 year to produce the wine and another 15 to age in a cellar). Other wines take considerably longer to peak, like say a hundred years. You can produce a cheap table wine relatively quickly, but it takes times to cultivate great quality wine.
Have you wondered why certain wines so expensive, costing hundreds of dollars for a bottle (you know the kind none of us drink)? Well the vine might be 120 years old to begin with, maybe it took 5 years to produce the wine, and maybe it’s in been reserve for over 100 years.
As wine waits in darkness, it literally becomes more precious.
So it is with us… waiting may seem like a waste of time, but if we trust God, God will stretch our soul, making them into a very fine wine.
John Ortberg says, what God does in us while we wait is just as import as what we’re waiting for.
In fact in some cases, what God does in us while we wait may be even more important than what we’re waiting for.
What God in us in the “in between” time may be more valuable than the thing we’re waiting for.
So, the “in between” waiting time that characterizes so much of life, how shall we then live?
God says in Habakkuk that the righteous will live by faith… vs. 4
What does it mean to live by faith?
Notice that faith is contrasted with pride… Habakkuk says, “See he is puffed up (an image of pride), his or her desires are not upright but the righteousness will live by faith…”
Faith is contrasted with pride; faith is a humble trust in the living God, during the “not yet.”
As much as we don’t the “not yet,” the “not yet” can provide us with a great platform to exercise trust.
Once a promise comes to pass, we lose the opportunity to exercise faith for that particular promise. Paul in Romans 8:24 says who hopes that is seen is no longer hope. For who hopes what he or she already has? Not yet is a platform for trusting God.
How do we trust God in times of waiting? How do we live faithfully in darkness? (The word faith btw can be translated “faithfulness” and if we truly have faith we will be faithful?” So how do we live by faith in the “not yet” or how do will live “faithfully” in the “not yet.”
As respected pastor and Bible expositor Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones has pointed out in his commentary on Habakkuk, part of the way we learn to trust God in times of waiting and darkness is to acknowledge what we already know about God.
Habakkuk does this. What God is doing doesn’t make sense to him. How can God use nation more evil than Judah to judge Judah? But during this time of questioning God, Habakkuk proclaims what he knows about the character of God. He acknowledges God is everlasting, he says “Are you not from everlasting?” (ch. 1 vs. 12). He acknowledges that God’s eyes are pure (ch. 1 vs. 13).
Part of the way we exercise faith in times of waiting, in times of darkness, is to acknowledge what we know about God.
When God doesn’t seem to make any sense: when this injustice seems to be happening, this seemingly needless pain is crashing into our lives, when we experience that seemingly unanswered prayer, that unsolved question… we can recite what we know about God.
Darrell and Sharon Johnson are members of this community. On December 20 2005 their then 18 year old son Alex while hiking in Southern California fell down a 120 foot cliff and as you can imagine sustained some very serious injuries. He was retrieved by a helicopter rescue team and taken to hospital.
By the time Darrell and Sharon Johnson got there Alex was in a coma on life support.
As Darrell driving in his car after visiting, Alex in the hospital these words came to his mind: There is a God. A good God. A faithful God. A powerful God. There is never a time when God is not good. There is never a time when God is not faithful. There is a never a time when God is not powerful. There is never a time when God is not on throne of the universe.
When it’ difficult to trust God… as Habakkuk and Darrell and Sharon have done… we need to quietly take a step a faith and acknowledge what we know about God’s character: There is a God. God is good. God is faithful. God powerful. God is present.
Some of here are time of waiting, time of darkness a time and perhaps some of us are tempted to doubt God.
Perhaps here even in the cloud of unknowing, must acknowledge God’s goodness and our trust in him.
Silence
I close with this and prayer of Thomas Merton:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going, I do not see the road ahead of me, I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always, though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Benediction: May you always know that God is good and in your season of waiting may God himself purify you through and through so that you your mind, body, and spirit may be made beautiful until the day you seem him face to face. Faithful is he who called you and he also will do it.
BI In the “in between time” the righteous will live by faith…
This past week my wife Sakiko and I did a Costco run. Whenever I’m at Costco, making my way to the check out line, I’m looking for the shortest and fastest moving line. I am scanning the line ups like a quarterback looking for a receiver downfield because I don’t like to wait any no longer than I have to.
No one likes to wait.
If you’re driving, how many of you are bothered when the light turns green and the person in front of you doesn’t move for 2 seconds (Do you say I’m glad for the extra time to meditate, let me try to get into the lotus position?).
We hate to have to wait for something to download on our computer (we don’t yeah! This I need this little moment of inactivity, I think I’ll do some stretching, some jogging on the spot, jumping jacks…)
Most of hate to wait! We see it as a complete waste of time!
But, much of life is about waiting… not just in line ups, in traffic or when we’re downloading something onto our computer, but we also have seasons of waiting. We wai for doors to open, we wait for people, we wait for prayers to be answered, and waiting can be frustrating…
So is waiting just a complete waste of time?
I part the answer to that question as we look at the life of the prophet Habakkuk.
Habakkuk new first hand about waiting.
He lived in about the year 600 B.C. during a time when Judah was filled with violence, evil, and injustice. He cried out, “How long on Lord, How long until you do something about the evil we see all around us?” God replied that he would raise up the Babylonians to judge Judah, but then Habakkuk was incensed that God would raise up a people more evil than the Babylonians to judge Judah and he waited again for God’s reply…
If you have you Bible please turn to Habakkuk 2:
1 I will stand at my watch
and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me,
and what answer I am to give to this complaint.
Habakkuk during a time when he was questioning God’s ways did not turn away from God in anger. Instead he went up to his watchtower, i.e. to a “high place.” He went up to get a greater perspective, and waited for an answer from God.
Listen to God’s reply.
The LORD 's Answer
2 Then the LORD replied:
"Write down the revelation
and make it plain on tablets
so that a herald may run with it.
3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it will certainly come
and will not delay.
4 "See, he is puffed up;
his desires are not upright—
but the righteous will live by their faith—
5 indeed, wine betrays him;
he is arrogant and never at rest.
Because he is as greedy as the grave
and like death is never satisfied,
he gathers to himself all the nations
and takes captive all the peoples.
6 "Will not all of them taunt him with ridicule and scorn, saying,
" 'Woe to him who piles up stolen goods
and makes himself wealthy by extortion!
How long must this go on?'
7 Will not your creditors suddenly arise?
Will they not wake up and make you tremble?
Then you will become their prey.
8 Because you have plundered many nations,
the peoples who are left will plunder you.
For you have shed human blood;
you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
9 "Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain,
setting his nest on high
to escape the clutches of ruin!
10 You have plotted the ruin of many peoples,
shaming your own house and forfeiting your life.
11 The stones of the wall will cry out,
and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.
12 "Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed
and establishes a town by injustice!
13 Has not the LORD Almighty determined
that the people's labor is only fuel for the fire,
that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing?
14 For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.
15 "Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbors,
pouring it from the wineskin till they are drunk,
so that he can gaze on their naked bodies!
16 You will be filled with shame instead of glory.
Now it is your turn! Drink and let your nakedness be exposed [e]!
The cup from the LORD's right hand is coming around to you,
and disgrace will cover your glory.
17 The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
and your destruction of animals will terrify you.
For you have shed human blood;
you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
18 "Of what value is an idol that someone has carved?
Or an image that teaches lies?
For those who make them trust in their own creations;
they make idols that cannot speak.
19 Woe to him who says to wood, 'Come to life!'
Or to lifeless stone, 'Wake up!'
Can it give guidance?
It is covered with gold and silver;
there is no breath in it."
20 The LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.
The prophet Habakkuk has been waiting for God to judge the people of Judah for all of its violence and injustice and God has told Habakkuk that he will raise up the Babylonians to judge Judah, but Habakkuk then furious that it is the Babylonians who will judge Judah because the Babylonians are more evil than the Judeans.
So, as we’ve seen, Habakkuk goes up to his watchtower and waits for God to say something.
God tells Habakkuk, that while he will use Babylon to judge Judah, but he will in turn also judge Babylon.
God tells Habakkuk that Babylon will be judged for its violence against Judah and we see poetic justice befalls Babylonian: the plunder is plundered vs. 8, the sham-er is shamed (vs. 16), the inflict-er of violence becomes the victim of violence (vs. 17).
Like Habakkuk, we may not see God’s justice at a particular moment in time, but overtime we see God’s justice more clearly. Who have envisioned the powerful, fierce Babylonians falling as she would?
Who could have envisioned some of the tyrants of the world coming to justice in their heyday? But with benefit of hindsight, we see Saddam Hussein caught in little square hide out underground, we see Hitler ending his life in his bunker, we see a Mussolini strung up by his feet.
When there is violence and injustice in the world, God does respond. As we see in Habakkuk, He will do in his time and he may well use a nation that is violent and unjust to judge the violent and unjust nation and this nation used to bring judgment will in turn be also judged.
While Habakkuk’s own people are being killed, pillaged and raped by the Babylonian army, Habakkuk now waits for God to exact judgment on Babylon.
Habakkuk has been given this revelation by God of the coming judgment upon Babylon.
Vs. 3 God says this revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger wait for it, it will certainly come and not delay.
From God’s vantage point the revelation does not delay. John Calvin has pointed out, God sees the future so no matter how far off the revelation is in our time, there’s no delay from God’s perspective.
But from a human perspective, the revelation as the text points out does linger… In fact, lingers for about 66 years (about 66 years after this prophecy Babylon falls).
Habakkuk’s journey with God involved a lot of waiting…
Much of our journey with God is about waiting…
As Andrea Havenor reminded us this summer if you were here, a lot of the Christian life is about is about living in the “not yet.”
Why is this the case?
Part of reason is because God has His own time table. In vs. 3 we read that the revelation awaits an appointed time. God has an appointed time to bring judgment to Babylon.
Sometime we wait because our timing is simply different from God’s timing.
In Barbara Kingsolver’s novel the Poisonwood Bible there’s a scene Leah…why God is allowing the ants to invade their village, and her African teenager, “Says life is not a mathematical equation is which we center.”
Sometime the reason we wait, as was the case with Habakkuk, is because the Lord His time table.
At other times God allows us to wait because he wants to do something deep inside us.
Not just Habakkuk, but everyone one of us here knows what it means to wait from something. To wait for a longing to be fulfilled, a hope to come to pass.
We may be waiting for the door to open to a school, a job, the success of a project, a relationship, marriage, waiting for children, or waiting for them to leave the home…
Or perhaps we’re waiting for guidance or healing or as it was for Habakkuk justice…
As it was for Habakkuk, waiting can be hard for us…
My New Testament professor in seminary, Dr. Scott Hafemann says, “The life of faith is not primarily an experience in which our longings are immediately fulfilled.” The life of faith is a life of expecting what God will do, as we trust him.
The apostle Paul in Romans 8 spoke we know God live with inner longing…
The great African theologian Augustine says:
The entire life of a good Christian is an exercise in holy desire (longing). You do not see what you long for, but the very act of desiring prepares you, so that when he (Jesus Christ) comes you may see and be utterly satisfied.
Suppose you are going to fill some holder or container, and you know you will be given a large amount. Then you set about stretching your sack or wineskin or whatever it is. Why? Because you know the quantity you have to put in it, and your eyes tell you there is not enough room. By stretching it, therefore, you increase the capacity of the sack, and this is how God deals with us. Simply by making us wait he increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul, making it able to receive what is to be given to us.
Augustine says while we’re waiting, God is stretching our soul. He’s increasing our capacity for His presence and His joy.
This past summer, my wife and I attended a family reunion in the Bay Area of California. We spent in the Napa Valley, the wine country (show photo).
We took a tour of the Robert Mondavi winery… Ralph our guide explained that certain wines, from the time the grapes are harvested, can take 4 years of waiting until then they’re bottled (show photo to barrels). If it’s a reserve wine say, that’s say bottled and released this year, it may not peak until the year 2020. So from the time those particular grapes it’s may about 19 years for the wine to peak (4 year to produce the wine and another 15 to age in a cellar). Other wines take considerably longer to peak, like say a hundred years. You can produce a cheap table wine relatively quickly, but it takes times to cultivate great quality wine.
Have you wondered why certain wines so expensive, costing hundreds of dollars for a bottle (you know the kind none of us drink)? Well the vine might be 120 years old to begin with, maybe it took 5 years to produce the wine, and maybe it’s in been reserve for over 100 years.
As wine waits in darkness, it literally becomes more precious.
So it is with us… waiting may seem like a waste of time, but if we trust God, God will stretch our soul, making them into a very fine wine.
John Ortberg says, what God does in us while we wait is just as import as what we’re waiting for.
In fact in some cases, what God does in us while we wait may be even more important than what we’re waiting for.
What God in us in the “in between” time may be more valuable than the thing we’re waiting for.
So, the “in between” waiting time that characterizes so much of life, how shall we then live?
God says in Habakkuk that the righteous will live by faith… vs. 4
What does it mean to live by faith?
Notice that faith is contrasted with pride… Habakkuk says, “See he is puffed up (an image of pride), his or her desires are not upright but the righteousness will live by faith…”
Faith is contrasted with pride; faith is a humble trust in the living God, during the “not yet.”
As much as we don’t the “not yet,” the “not yet” can provide us with a great platform to exercise trust.
Once a promise comes to pass, we lose the opportunity to exercise faith for that particular promise. Paul in Romans 8:24 says who hopes that is seen is no longer hope. For who hopes what he or she already has? Not yet is a platform for trusting God.
How do we trust God in times of waiting? How do we live faithfully in darkness? (The word faith btw can be translated “faithfulness” and if we truly have faith we will be faithful?” So how do we live by faith in the “not yet” or how do will live “faithfully” in the “not yet.”
As respected pastor and Bible expositor Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones has pointed out in his commentary on Habakkuk, part of the way we learn to trust God in times of waiting and darkness is to acknowledge what we already know about God.
Habakkuk does this. What God is doing doesn’t make sense to him. How can God use nation more evil than Judah to judge Judah? But during this time of questioning God, Habakkuk proclaims what he knows about the character of God. He acknowledges God is everlasting, he says “Are you not from everlasting?” (ch. 1 vs. 12). He acknowledges that God’s eyes are pure (ch. 1 vs. 13).
Part of the way we exercise faith in times of waiting, in times of darkness, is to acknowledge what we know about God.
When God doesn’t seem to make any sense: when this injustice seems to be happening, this seemingly needless pain is crashing into our lives, when we experience that seemingly unanswered prayer, that unsolved question… we can recite what we know about God.
Darrell and Sharon Johnson are members of this community. On December 20 2005 their then 18 year old son Alex while hiking in Southern California fell down a 120 foot cliff and as you can imagine sustained some very serious injuries. He was retrieved by a helicopter rescue team and taken to hospital.
By the time Darrell and Sharon Johnson got there Alex was in a coma on life support.
As Darrell driving in his car after visiting, Alex in the hospital these words came to his mind: There is a God. A good God. A faithful God. A powerful God. There is never a time when God is not good. There is never a time when God is not faithful. There is a never a time when God is not powerful. There is never a time when God is not on throne of the universe.
When it’ difficult to trust God… as Habakkuk and Darrell and Sharon have done… we need to quietly take a step a faith and acknowledge what we know about God’s character: There is a God. God is good. God is faithful. God powerful. God is present.
Some of here are time of waiting, time of darkness a time and perhaps some of us are tempted to doubt God.
Perhaps here even in the cloud of unknowing, must acknowledge God’s goodness and our trust in him.
Silence
I close with this and prayer of Thomas Merton:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going, I do not see the road ahead of me, I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always, though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Benediction: May you always know that God is good and in your season of waiting may God himself purify you through and through so that you your mind, body, and spirit may be made beautiful until the day you seem him face to face. Faithful is he who called you and he also will do it.
posted by Shigematsu at 11:02 AM
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