I think we’re taught to believe, not maybe directly, but it’s certainly implied, that following God is straight-forward. There is a moral law to follow; He’ll help us do it and lead us to where we need to go. Bah-dah-boom. Black and white.
A lot of times, though, the Christian life looks more like an Indiana Jones adventure. We’re told “there’s nothing to fear here,” then we agonize and contort who we are, trying not to step on the wrong stones. We try our hardest to measure up to the golden statue before us, trying to attain that elusive prize. We pour ourselves out to measure up, we try to do everything right… And then everything explodes. The walls fall apart, and it’s like the things we thought were there to help us are intentionally tearing us down.
So where do we go when that happens… When we’re about to fall into that ever widening chasm, hanging on for dear life but slipping?
For most of my life, I smiled. I ignored the chaos around me, pushed my emotions down, into the depths of who I am, deep enough that the butterflies in my stomach suffocated. I kept walking, ignoring the fact that I was about to be crushed by a giant boulder. I tried really hard to let worship music drown out the voices of the lies that had planted themselves in my mind.
That approach worked, sometimes. But sometimes, I crashed. All the emotions I’d ignored and stuffed deep down started bubbling up. I didn’t know how to face them. In my mind they were wrong. I should be able to handle this life. I have the Holy Spirit. God loves me. What else do I need? I didn’t know, so I ran away… usually to get ice cream.
One of my husband’s favorite books of all time (realizing the biggest competition is the “Hardy Boys” series from his Accelerated Reader days) is Tim Keller’s The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. In the introduction, Keller makes an astute comment:
“A faith without some doubts is like a human body without any antibodies in it. People who blithely go through life too busy or indifferent to ask hard questions about why they believe as they do will find themselves defenseless against either the experience of tragedy or the probing questions of a smart skeptic.”
My instinct, being the “good Christian” and “missionary” is often to run from my doubts. I don’t want to disappoint people, or cause them to fall into the same doubts I’m wrestling with. And, to be honest, there are a lot of doubts I’ve walked through. When I was graduating from college, I was excited because I felt like I had a clear calling from God. I had a beautiful ministry where I had encountered God, where I was bearing fruit, and where I saw great purpose. I saw my “niche” in the kingdom of God. And then, we had to raise support. So we spent two years raising up a team of financial supporters. And it was hard. It was isolating; it was long; it was exhausting; it was discouraging. It was excruciating watching my husband struggle and feeling powerless to help. I didn’t understand how, if this was what God was calling us to, He wasn’t providing for our financial needs. I started questing the character of God.
And completing our support, I was excited to start in ministry, but I continued to struggle. We got involved in a church that slowly died, and I had trouble fitting on my staff team, and ministry took all my emotional energy, so I didn’t have time or capacity to make friends with people. So, one year in, I felt lonely, misunderstood, and alone. Fast forward another year, and we’d started to get involved at a church, and started to have friends, but it seemed like everything in my ministry and on my staff team was falling apart… And I looked at where I was four years ago, excited about God’s calling on my life, and I wondered what happened. Why had following God brought me to this place? I was left questioning the goodness of God and his care for me.
But, thankfully, I’m not alone in my musings about the Lord and his character. Yes, I have His Holy Spirit, but even when I am trusting in faith that He’s there because I can’t see or feel him, He has left me a companion in my commiserating. And that is where my heart has been dwelling for the last several years. Enter Habakkuk.
Habakkuk lived in a time when the Babylonian army was very powerful and was coming to conquer Israel (well, Judah, the Southern kingdom of Israel), and he was confused about why. Babylon was not a Godly nation. Pretty much the opposite. So why were they prevailing? What he saw didn’t line up with what he knew about God, so he went to God to ask him about it.
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 12-14
O LORD, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even cry out to You, “Violence!” And You will not save. Why do You show me iniquity and cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; There is strife, and contention arises. Therefore the law is powerless, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore perverse judgment proceeds… Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness. Why do you look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he? Why do you make men like fish of the sea, like creeping things that have no ruler over them?
At the root of me stuffing my emotions down and not dealing with my doubts is pride. I don’t want people to see that I am not good enough. To know that I don’t have all the answers. To realize the depths of my insufficiencies. So, something that immediately spoke to my soul, before I even consciously realized it, as I studied Habakkuk, was the realization of the humility that he approached the LORD with. He’s a prophet. A leader of the people, their connection with God. He was the one that was supposed to have all the answers. God spoke to him, after all. And yet, when he didn’t have the answers, he wasn’t ashamed to go to the Lord and say that he didn’t understand. That humility is a piece of what makes Habakkuk so beautiful, because as Paul was told many years later, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”
It’s a character trait I struggle to grasp: humility. I want to have the answers. I want to be the person that people look to because of her confidence and knowledge. I don’t want to admit my understanding is incomplete. In short, I don’t want to admit my need for God. How about you? Do you have questions to bring to God that your pride won’t allow? Let yourself rest in His grace. Let yourself admit that you don’t have it all together, and join me (and Habakkuk) in trusting that He will respond.
