What a wonderful message was heard today at Trinity Church. When God doesn't make sense. When we feel that God isn't listening to our cries or just doesn't care. How many of us out there have at one point or are right now in that season? How many of us have at one time or another cried out to God for peace, for deliverance, for healing for us or a loved one, for God to spare the life of your child and He allows the opposite to happen? WHY, GOD,WHY????
Yet in the book of Habakkuk, God answers Habakkuk after he cries out to God and asks God, Why are good people being taken advantage of? Why are all these bad things happening to good people? Why is it that the wicked appear to prosper while the righteous suffer relentlessly. Almost seems as if those words were written in our times and yet...they were written over 2500 years ago. How true to our times those questions are. When we see a man who has abused his wife and children for years and is a drunk and has cursed God and yet he lives to be in his 90's and yet a God-fearing loving husband and father dies at the age of 42 of cancer...Why? It just doesn't make sense. God where are you? When a 10 month old little boy in Indiana gets brain cancer...God, it isn't fair. How can your faith grow when what you see does not line up with your faith?
The name Habakkuk means to "wrestle." And wrestle with God Habakkuk did. Yet when Habakkuk asked "why, God?" God had an answer. God said, "Look at the nations....I am going to do a new thing and you will not believe it even if I told you." In the midst of your trial you have three choices...Warrior Chicks...we've been studying Habakkuk even without knowing it. The first choice is we can pray to go back to the way things used to be...in a "blessed state." What I mean about that is that when we first encounter Jesus we wake up new and happy and the birds are chirping and all is great with the world. The second choice is...return to your old life...your old way of doing things. You began to question God when you started going through trials. You started to question this whole God and church thing. So instead of going any further with God, you choose to go back to your old life. But the third choice is the keeper...this is the choice of champions. This is where you get to know who you really are and you get to know your God better. The third choice is...keep going. Press through. As my husband so demonstratively showed...you wrestle with God, you question but you hold on...you hang on for dear life...whatever you do .."DON'T LET GO!!!" You press through, you hang in there...God is going to do a new thing in your life that even if He told you you would not believe it. Those who chose the other two choices will never experience God in this way. They will never go to the next level in their faith walk, in their faith journey. Know that God's ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts...but one thing I know, even when He doesn't make sense, is that He loves me that He loves you. He loves me with intensity that I have never experienced before. He loves me unconditionally and His plans for me and my family are BIG. Yeah, I don't get God sometimes, but I love Him. He is my everything. Without Him I would not have been able to get through what I've been through. He is my everything and I thank Him for never giving up on me even when I wanted to give up. My God is for me. My God is for You.
I wanted to thank my amazing husband for the inspiration of this piece. He inspires me daily. Thank you, my love!
Don't give up on God when the going gets tough. You keep on keeping on. Don't quit. Don't throw in the towel. Don't retreat. Don't surrender. Hang on as if your life depended on it...it does. His plans for your life are being unfolded even if you don't see it or don't understand.
Yet in the book of Habakkuk, God answers Habakkuk after he cries out to God and asks God, Why are good people being taken advantage of? Why are all these bad things happening to good people? Why is it that the wicked appear to prosper while the righteous suffer relentlessly. Almost seems as if those words were written in our times and yet...they were written over 2500 years ago. How true to our times those questions are. When we see a man who has abused his wife and children for years and is a drunk and has cursed God and yet he lives to be in his 90's and yet a God-fearing loving husband and father dies at the age of 42 of cancer...Why? It just doesn't make sense. God where are you? When a 10 month old little boy in Indiana gets brain cancer...God, it isn't fair. How can your faith grow when what you see does not line up with your faith?
The name Habakkuk means to "wrestle." And wrestle with God Habakkuk did. Yet when Habakkuk asked "why, God?" God had an answer. God said, "Look at the nations....I am going to do a new thing and you will not believe it even if I told you." In the midst of your trial you have three choices...Warrior Chicks...we've been studying Habakkuk even without knowing it. The first choice is we can pray to go back to the way things used to be...in a "blessed state." What I mean about that is that when we first encounter Jesus we wake up new and happy and the birds are chirping and all is great with the world. The second choice is...return to your old life...your old way of doing things. You began to question God when you started going through trials. You started to question this whole God and church thing. So instead of going any further with God, you choose to go back to your old life. But the third choice is the keeper...this is the choice of champions. This is where you get to know who you really are and you get to know your God better. The third choice is...keep going. Press through. As my husband so demonstratively showed...you wrestle with God, you question but you hold on...you hang on for dear life...whatever you do .."DON'T LET GO!!!" You press through, you hang in there...God is going to do a new thing in your life that even if He told you you would not believe it. Those who chose the other two choices will never experience God in this way. They will never go to the next level in their faith walk, in their faith journey. Know that God's ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts...but one thing I know, even when He doesn't make sense, is that He loves me that He loves you. He loves me with intensity that I have never experienced before. He loves me unconditionally and His plans for me and my family are BIG. Yeah, I don't get God sometimes, but I love Him. He is my everything. Without Him I would not have been able to get through what I've been through. He is my everything and I thank Him for never giving up on me even when I wanted to give up. My God is for me. My God is for You.
I wanted to thank my amazing husband for the inspiration of this piece. He inspires me daily. Thank you, my love!
Don't give up on God when the going gets tough. You keep on keeping on. Don't quit. Don't throw in the towel. Don't retreat. Don't surrender. Hang on as if your life depended on it...it does. His plans for your life are being unfolded even if you don't see it or don't understand.
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