Habakkuk...the ultimate 'SAY WHAT????"

I was thinking about a friend tonight who's had a really rough time recently and isn't out of the woods yet. What do you say? When things have been so tough, just what religious platitude do you throw out there? "Keep on keeping on"...yep, I'D hit me if I said that. When "trust in the Lord" is what my friend is doing and it's just going to be a process...a long one, perhaps, what do you say?  Guess I'll just pray.  It's especially hard when you've lain out for the very Lord that seems to have been the very One who left you almost stranded in the tough spot you are in. What's encouraging? Maybe a little company, possibly?
When I prayed for my friend, I prayed for the faith of Habakkuk. Here's the story (if you don't know it). Here's Habakkuk, trying to be out there being God's guy, standing up against evil, and he goes to God completely indignant against the nasty Babylonians.  He's all like just laying down how it is to God, completely expecting God to totally agree with him...Habakkuk is completely convinced that God is right there with him, and of course, who wouldn't be? But God completely throws him an uber-curve. "God, how can you let their evil continue?", and God replies "no, no, I'm raising the Babylonians up to do something you wouldn't believe..."


After God laid out the plan, I don't know if there was a long pause before Habakkuk's second complaint, but there should have been. My picture is a cartoony extra long Looney Tunes face on a guy just standing there with his scroll unconsciously slipping from his fingers...."Say WHAT????....bu-bu-but you sa......"
This moment was a cataclysmic theological change for Habakkuk. He was COMPLETELY bought in to one particular line of thought and it got just blown out of the water..."raising up" the people who were tormenting/violating/damaging him and his people and doing evil all over the place...God???  How???  He's in a tough spot, and it's almost like God just booted him from the chariot he road here in and sped off in it down the long dusty road out of sight.
Still, through the book, you see the faith that is beyond "belief" or theological theory in Habakkuk...a belief that is simply in the amazing God that He has served all His life...and at the end of the book in chapter 3 are these words, from the guy who's just been driven somewhere and left...

16 I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.

17 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,

18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Wow...that's stout.  Throw me a curve, God and I'm with you.  Completely destroy my pre-conceived understanding that I've spent years building of You and I will still rejoice in You and be joyful as well.

Hang in there, buddy.
 Please pray for us as Bay West Church continues to try to be the church to the people of west Palm Bay, Florida.