How could you let this happen?

 

Gotta love our buddy, Habakkuk.

He is so very familiar! We've all been there, and done that!

We've all asked these questions.

Habakkuk answered his own first question: God, Who are You?

He reminded himself of the attributes of God - and took comfort in the basics. Habakkuk reminded himself of the holiness and goodness of God; he recalled that God is sovereign; he remembered that He makes no mistakes.

Then, in verse thirteen, he asks, "How could you let this happen?"

Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do You look with favor On those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up Those more righteous than they? (v. 13, NASB)

Hmmmm. We all understand that there are inequities in our world. It's hard to watch some people get a few sprinkles of "into each life a little rain must fall" while others endure a virtual downpour. We may be experiencing the downpour ourselves. How do we explain this?

Habakkuk's question came from what he saw as a seeming conflict in God and what He was allowing to happen. He thought, if God cannot tolerate wrongdoing (which is true, He cannot tolerate sin) then how in the world could He use the Babylonians to judge Judah? After all, Babylon's sins were over the moon greater than the sins of Judah, right?

We've probably seen what we feel are contradictions like that. But it's not a contradiction. There are NO contradictions with Father God -- but it IS true that He does things that seem to us to be inconsistent. The key phrase is "seem to us." 

We know that God's ways will not always make sense to us. Not even when we look through the lens of our faith. Well, I guess a better way to put it is this: in the short run, God's ways will sometimes not make sense to us. We just don't know why things happen the way that they do.

Sometimes we find out later.

Sometimes days later; sometimes years later. Sometimes we won't find out until we get to heaven!

Everybody wrestles with this at some point in their life. When we get right down to brass tacks, as my grandma used to say, we come back to this truth: God is sovereign and we are not. Have you ever thought about all the mistakes we make because we forget that? (Grin) It's important for us to remember this verse:

But our God is in the heavens;
He does whatever He pleases. (Psalm 115:3)

So, at this point in chapter one of Habakkuk, God hasn't answered this question from the prophet. We will see His answer in the next chapter.

But Habakkuk isn't done yet!

He also wants to know "how long is this going to last?"

Will they therefore empty their net
And continually slay nations without sparing? (Habakkuk 1:17)

They? Who? The whole Babylonian army, led by King Nebuchadnezzar. They keep on conquering nation after nation . . . To them, nations and people are like fish - they keep reeling in more and more. And now they are fishing for Judah!

In the face of this evil, Habakkuk wonders when it will all end. Will no one be able to stop Babylon? Will Nebuchadnezzar's reign of terror go on forever? When life crashes in around us, we ask, like Habakkuk did: when will it end? 

So, now we have the three questions that Habakkuk asked of God. He answered the first one, Who are you? He's waiting for God to answer the other two: how can you let this happen? and how long will this go on?

These are all honest questions. Habakkuk is confident in God, but he has questions that he can't answer. He does the only thing he knows to do -- he turns to God to answer them.

More tomorrow . . . . .