A Grievance To God

4.19.15
"Habakkuk's Complaint"

Open a newspaper or read the headlines on your favorite news app and chances are there will be reports of violence, prejudice, and other forms of injustices transpiring locally and around the world. As Christians, we may often pause to ask "why?" If we do not internally ask the question, there are plenty of others who are non-believers to ask the question for us. Why does all this take place? Where can we go to file a complaint?

In the seventh century B.C., the prophet Habakkuk had a complaint for God and asked a very similar question about the movement of Babylon throughout the middle eastern countries which threatened Israel and God's people. In Habakkuk chapter 1 he complains to God:

"How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out 'violence!' but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and conflicts abound. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so justice is perverted."

Wow! Here we are some twenty seven hundred years later and we could file the same complaint. We see violence everyday. We see tolerance of injustice and persecution of the righteous when there should prosecution of the unrighteous and protection for the innocent.

God answers Habakkuk's complaint with a rather peculiar statement. He tells his questioner:

"Look at the nations and watch - and be utterly amazed. For I am doing something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told." 

God goes on to describe how he is allowing the Babylonians, ruthless and impetuous people, to sweep across the land and allowing them to be feared, deride kings, scoff at rulers, and devouring all they come upon. God tells Habakkuk that these men who are so intimidating, their own strength is their god.

I can picture myself in Habakkuk's place. You ask God a question and he gives back and answer that makes you even more perplexed. Maybe he is thinking "So, what you are saying God is that you see all this bad stuff and you are allowing it to happen?" Great. That does not help. Habakkuk tries a second time to clarify the question. He asked God specifically acknowledging that God is too good to look upon evil, so how can God look upon these evil men doing evil things?

Good point. In a debate that kind of point would seem to be an "aha, what ya gonna say 'bout that" kind of argument. But if we pause a moment to really think about the statement, we would retract it immediately. True, God is pure good. True, God does not look upon sin. He can have no part in it. We must also keep in mind that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). If we want to make the point to God that he should act on every person's sin, then we would have no one on this earth. What Habakkuk is asking and we would ask ourselves, is why God doesn't go after the really bad people of this world.

Who are the really bad people of this world? People who are other than us. That is our flaw: we see only others as evil. We too often do not recognize the evil in us. Our vision is small and God's is huge. God explains to Habakkuk (and us) that we are too small to understand the plans that he has made. Plans that take into account the evil and wrongdoing of this world and yet will somehow end in our salvation, the world's restoration, and eternal harmony for those who believe in Him.

That is God's real advice - believe. In Habakkuk 2:4 he tells us that the "righteous will live by their faith". It is that belief, that faith, in God to be in control that should carry us on even when the world looks dark and foreboding. Like a trusting child, we should trust that God our father is in total control - even over those things that appear not to be.