HOW LONG O LORD?
Have you ever taken a look around our world and wondered what exactly God is doing? Why does God allow the things that happen to happen? After all, we believe that God is all-powerful, all-wise, and all-knowing, perfect and supremely good and righteous. This is how he has revealed himself to us, most of all in and through Jesus Christ. Yet if God is all powerful, all-wise, all-good, and all-righteous and just, then why are things the way they are? Why is there so much evil and brokenness in our world, and why doesn’t God just fix it?
These are valid questions – they are questions that it is right for us as human beings to ask. The Bible never tells us to accept reality blindly, or to resign ourselves to the ways of the world without asking God why. In fact the Bible encourages us to ask those questions and to seek out answers from God. Psalm 13:1-2 voices these very concerns: “How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?” God wants us to bring our questions to him.
In addition to many psalms that encourage us to do this, there are two entire books of the Bible that help us to see God in the midst of suffering, that encourage us to bring our questions to him, that help us to remember who God is and that he has a plan. One is the book of Job, the well-known story of a man who lost everything, his health, his possessions, and his family, and struggled mightily over how to relate to God through it all. The other book is Habakkuk, the book we are going to go through together as a church over the next several weeks on Sunday mornings. No matter what is happening in our lives or in our world, no matter how we are struggling to understand God’s ways, he is there, he is working, and we can come to him.
God bless,
