Honest Doubt. Courageous Faith

And on cue, roll out the clichés.  It was an amazing weekend of hockey chaos.

“I’ll take ‘Words That Describe Boston’ for $600, Alex.”

“What are, “Eliminated, Collapse, and Early-bird Golf?”

Most of us - myself included - thought the Jeopardy category would be about Toronto, not Boston.  Hockey chaos occurs when the unexpected happens.  For diehard Leaf fans, this is a sweet reversal of fortune.  So sweet, indeed.

The ancient people of God saw very few “wins.”  There were some big ones early in their history - the Exodus, taking possession of their land, establishing the line of David as King, and building a Temple where the “Name of God would dwell.”  These “wins” were bookended on either end, first by 400 years of slavery in Egypt and then finally the destruction of the nation, the Kingship, and the Temple.

Every year, these people lived with the eager anticipation that This Would Be The Year for the Messiah to come and introduce the ultimate reversal of fortune.  It didn’t happen.  For hundreds of years, there was disappointment followed by, “There’s always next year.”  They were always looking forward, always anticipating, living the perpetual cycle of hope-disappointment-confusion.  Always disappointed.

In an intimate record of his own personal journey through this cycle, the biblical author Habakkuk offers us a platform on which we can stand and view the cycle, almost as an outsider looking in.  He starts with a complaint - “How long, God, are You going to allow this injustice and violence to continue?”  Instead of answering Habakkuk with a Ghent Chart of Diving Planning and Ultimate Reversal of Fortune, God simply says, “I am going to do something - and you won’t believe it.”  It wasn’t that this was too good to be true;  it was that it was too chaotic to be true.  

God’s plan was to use some of the worst, most feared, ill-reputed people in the social, economic, and political realm of Habakkuk’s life to bring about the change for which Habakkuk desperately longed.  This made no sense to Habakkuk.  How can people who proliferate the very problem of injustice and violence also be the agents to address the issue of injustice and violence?  Unbelievable - and God had warned Habakkuk that he wouldn’t believe it.

To make a long story short, the Babylonians did overrun the remaining people of God.  This is the era when we have the stories of Daniel in the Lion’s Den, and the Fiery Furnace.  This was a time of chaos.  The most common prayer on the lips of God’s people was, “God - where are You?  How long, O Lord?”

In this we find the context of what it means to “live by faith.”  We love that phrase.  We feel the need for faith less when life is buttercups and roses.  But what does “live by faith” mean in the daily grit of disappointment and confusion?  How does “faith” help us when all our faith represents seems to be absent from our daily experience?

Habakkuk learnt that faith must (a) have an object (namely, the Creator God) and (b) be nurtured.  Just as the king of the Babylonians was driven by passions for all the wrong things (read Habakkuk 2), so also faith in God is nurtured by passion for the right things - for knowledge of God and for what is right and true even though that passion resulted in his emotional distress as he witnessed the injustice and violence all around him.

As Habakkuk’s knowledge of God grew (or perhaps, he recalled the truths he already knew about God), so also did his confidence in Him.  The circumstances - as confusing as they were and as desperately as they all wanted a reversal of fortune - demanded faith.  This faith was expressed as patience, as hope, as humility, and as dependence on God (especially when He didn’t make sense).  Faith didn’t result in an immediate reversal of fortune.

The chaos of Habakkuk’s life and our own is only chaos to us.  There is in motion an unseen process of reversal of fortune.  There is hope even though we live in confusion.  Like Habakkuk, we will scratch our heads.  However, like Habakkuk we, too, can be bold and honest enough to ask God the hard questions.  We can express honest doubt if we have courageous faith.  The unexpected will happen.  

We need not know when or how because we know Who.