Habakkuk 1:2-4 When God Doesn’t Seem Good
I received a message one evening from a friend that read, “Brent, help me. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” The cheekish part of my brain noticed the lack of context and wanted to respond with “I don’t know what you are doing either,” but my better judgment understood the urgency.
“What’s the matter? Are you alright?”
“I just ran away from a party. I had… a bit to drink… and when a boy tried to approach me, it felt like I snapped out of a trance and suddenly realized where I was. How did I end up in this situation?”
For context, this friend of mine had earlier that year planned to attend seminary to work in teen ministries. And I believe that she was perfect for the job. I have met few people as compassionate and kind as her, and children love her. So, for someone in her position, ready to live for the Lord yet living in dissonance with her calling, I was also wondering, “How did this happen?”
I took some time to think about her situation and make sense of it myself. The easy answer is that she could have made different choices, but there was more to it than that. I’ve seen this scene play out before with others who have chosen to leave the church.
This led me to one of the most important questions I ever asked about someone’s faith: “Do you doubt that God is actually good?”
This question caught her off guard. “Of course He’s good… I’m sure…” she replied.
I spent the next few minutes helping her trace ‘how’ she got to where she was, but that was only the symptoms of the actual problem. I realized her issue was that she was avoiding the more important but uncomfortable question – “Why, God?”
She was avoiding the most important but uncomfortable question – “Why, God?”
To understand why this question is so important, I want to share a lesson from Habakkuk, who struggled with the same questions.
Study on Habakkuk 1
Habakkuk is a unique prophetic book because, unlike most of the other prophetic books, which record God’s message to the Israelites, this book records a conversation between God and His prophet Habakkuk. This makes it a book where we can learn a lot about what our relationship with God and prayer life can look like.
I’ll be focusing on the first 4 verses:
You probably noticed right away how unhappy Habakkuk sounds. And with that tone, he accuses God in a lot of ways that probably make us uncomfortable. To list them out:
“You will not hear.”
“You will not save.”
“You idly look at wrong.”
Does God idly look at wrong? A quick Google search defines idle as “lazy, pointless, or doing nothing,” none of which I would dare accuse God of being. We know intellectually that God is not idle when it comes to wrong. The clearest example is Jesus Christ’s death on the cross when he put sin in its grave, and we know he’s coming back again to finish the job. We know that God is alive and active in our lives.
But does Habakkuk know this? I’d argue that as a prophet, he probably knows this even better than we do. So why then does he accuse God of being idle? Like my friend, Habakkuk seems to be living in dissonance with what God has called him to be. And also like my friend, we need to know how he got to this point.
A Good God and Our Suffering
Habakkuk lived during a dark period in Judah’s history. His people had fallen away from God, and his nation had become rampant with corruption, violence, and injustice. Habakkuk, knowing that God hates these things and cares deeply that his people be holy, is rightfully confused. What he knows about God seems to be in contradiction with what he’s experiencing. How can a good God allow this much evil and suffering?
It seems like in our study of this little book, we stumbled across the problem of God and suffering. This is not going to be the post where I tackle the theological questions of why God allows suffering. For now, I want to focus on this: What to do when we find ourselves in Habakkuk’s situation. What do we do when what we know about God doesn’t seem to match our experiences of God?
What do we do when what we know about God doesn’t seem to match our experiences of God?
The key, I believe, is the question that my friend was avoiding: “Why, God?” We see Habakkuk ask this twice. This seems straightforward, and it is, but in my experience, people tend to avoid this question without realizing it. This ends up being a crucial mistake, because asking the question “why” is the first step to how we work through some of the most difficult situations we might face, and what every Christian ought to learn to do: Processing with God.
The Dangers of Avoiding the Process
Habakkuk was saying these untrue things to God, not because he was trying to blaspheme, but because he was trying to process with God. There are no easy answers to why God allows people to suffer. But if we want to find peace in the midst of it, or by God’s grace, answers for it, then we need to give ourselves the time and space to process with God the things happening to us and around us.
If we want to find peace in the midst of suffering, then we need to give ourselves the time and space to process with God the things happening to us and around us.
It’s easy to see why someone might avoid this kind of processing. Since your first day in church, you’ve been taught that God is good and faithful. But also, since your first day at church, there have most likely been many things that have caused you to doubt that truth. You have probably been in Habakkuk’s shoes more times than you would have liked. When you go through a financial crisis, or a heartbreak, or a family member passes, there is that little voice in the back of your head that says, “Perhaps God is not good…”
What are you supposed to do with thoughts like that? How comfortable are you in letting your church community know you doubt God’s goodness? Probably not at all, which is why you never hear anyone admit it. How comfortable are you in even having those thoughts? Probably not at all. And what you do next could have major impacts on your faith.
The way I see it, you have a choice: be honest about your thoughts or pretend otherwise. I’ve unfortunately seen many people choose the latter, and they either continue attending church nominally or leave the faith altogether. This is because, in order to resolve the contradiction in their heads, they will arrive at 1 of 2 conclusions: “God is not good” (giving them no reason to go to church) or “God IS good, so therefore I must be the problem.”
My friend ended up choosing to pretend, and went down the second conclusion.
Helping My Friend Process
This was the rest of my conversation with her:
“God had captivated your heart, giving you a passion and love for children, so you wanted to live in faithfulness to Him by pursuing full-time ministry. But after you committed to a school, your past came back to haunt you. Your mentally unstable mother caught you by surprise, saying she refuses to pay for your tuition, after the deadline to apply for financial aid had already passed. This was a major bump in the road you weren’t expecting. Your path forward, which seemed so clear, now suddenly seemed to lead to a dead end. What is God doing? But you tell yourself, ‘God is good, and He always has a plan,’ so you brush it off.
Another opportunity presents itself! The church offered you an internship position to work with the youth! However, someone that you saw as a mentor figure advised against hiring you because of your strained relationship with your mom. Two birds with one stone, not only did your internship opportunity get revoked, but someone you trusted betrayed you. But you tell yourself, ‘God is good, and He always has a plan…’ Only this time, there’s another little voice emerging, threatening to cancel out what you know to be true.
These events only make your relationship with your mom spiral further. In one of her mental breakdowns, she threatens you and chases you out of the house. A moment ago, you were wondering what you would do for the next year. Now, you were wondering what you would do this evening. You try repeating what you tell yourself every time, ‘God is… good? He has a plan… for me?’ That other voice, which was quiet at first, suddenly becomes audible.
‘Perhaps God is not good…’”
Nobody likes this cognitive dissonance. We end up distancing ourselves from the source, which in this case is God. Slowly, you started praying less, your bible remained closed, your attendance at church became sporadic, you tried to find other things to distract yourself and fill your time, you started mixing with the wrong crowd, until you found yourself with a bottle in one hand and a boy whose name you don’t know in the other.”
My friend paused before responding. “Brent… I think that is exactly what happened to me.”
How To Properly Process
A few paragraphs ago, I said you have a choice: to be honest with your thoughts, or pretend otherwise. When that little voice starts talking dissonance into your ears, it does you no good to pretend like it’s not there. You can trick all your friends and even trick yourself, but you’ll never be able to trick God. So my advice? Tell God about that voice. He already knows it’s there, so you aren’t catching Him by surprise or hurting His feelings.
Tell God about that voice. He already knows it’s there, so you aren’t catching Him by surprise or hurting His feelings.
I have to remind myself to do this, because I still catch myself trying to pretend like those voices aren’t there. I look at Habakkuk as an example. Instead of going through the motions in prayer, I’ll sit in a quiet place and tell God, “You already know what’s on my heart. You see my unbelief, my fears, and my failures. Why am I going through this? My head knows that you are good, but my heart isn’t there yet. Please help my heart to catch up.”
There’s something about this quiet reflection that I find healing. And in my experience, every time I’ve come to God like this, He has been faithful to respond. We will see this happen for Habakkuk as well in our next study!
My second piece of advice is to tell a friend or someone you trust. God speaks to us in many ways, and one of the most consistent for me has always been through godly people who I know love me and love God. For those of you this applies to, and you are reading this post, you know who you are, and I will be forever grateful.
Words To My Friend
To my friend I mentioned in this post: I meant it when I said you are one of the most compassionate and kind people I know. Life has seemed particularly unkind and unfair to you, and yet you’ve never let it affect how you treat others. Know that I will always believe in you, and that on your behalf, I will always believe that God is good, all the time.
