Readings for the day: Habkkuk 1-3
“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places.” (Habakkuk 3:17-19)
When I was in college, I attended a Bible study one summer where the leader challenged us all to think about why we loved God. Drawing in material from across the Old Testament, he forced us to ask the fundamental question, “Is God worthy of our love simply because He’s God? Or does God need to earn our love and devotion on some level?” That may seem like an easy question to answer on the face of it but consider the implications. Consider the words of Habakkuk above. What if God withheld His blessings from your life? What if your work didn’t prosper? You never got married? Your children suffered? What if your health failed? You were discriminated against? Or falsely accused and imprisoned? What if your friends walked away from you? Your family turned against you? And you were left alone? What if your body turned against you and you contracted a disease like ALS? Or schizophrenia emerged when you were in your early 20’s? Or early dementia set in robbing you of your faculties? Would you still love God? Would He still be worthy of your devotion? Taking it one step further, would you rejoice? Praise the God of your salvation?
These are the issues the leader of our group forced us to confront as we wrestled with the fundamental question, “Is God Enough?” From a ministry perspective, consider the call God placed on Habakkuk’s life. He is called to preach judgment. Suffering. Pain. The coming retribution for cumulative sins of the people of God. This is not your best life now. Or seven steps to a better you. Or God has a wonderful plan for your life. This is hard stuff and I am sure it didn’t make him very popular. He probably didn’t pastor a mega-church. Probably didn’t fill an auditorium. Probably would not have appeared on the cover of OutReach Magazine. He fails the seeker-sensitive test. Fails to make faith attractive. He puts a stumbling block to faith in the path of every single person who would give him a listen. And yet, everything he says is true. God’s truth.
Passages like this force us to grapple with why we believe. Why we love God. Why we worship Him and serve Him. Is it for the eschatological goodies? Eternal salvation? An eternal home where the streets are paved with gold? A place where there is no more suffering, crying, or pain? Is that why we love God? Because He provides a safe and secure retirement plan? Or is it for the temporal blessings? Health. Wealth. Success. Take these things away and we often find our faith on the chopping block. I can’t tell you the number of Christians I’ve counseled over the years who’ve walked away from their faith simply because they felt God had let them down.
Is God enough? It’s a question every Christian has to wrestle with at some point in their lives. It’s fundamentally the question the great heroes of our faith wrestled with in their lives. Noah believed God was enough even as he watched the world be destroyed. Abraham and Sarah believed God was enough even though they were barren and had no children. Moses believed God was enough even as he was being sent back to what I’m sure he assumed would be certain death in Egypt. David believed God was enough even when he sinned with Bathsheba. Jesus believed His Father was enough which is why He embraced the cross. Paul believed God was enough which is how he learned to be content in all circumstances. And on and on it goes. Down through the ages. The question is posed to every generation in all times and places. Until it comes to us. Do we believe God is enough? Or do we need more? What if God took away our American Dream? What if God took away our health? Our wealth? Our success? What if it served God’s purposes to strip these things out of our lives? Would He still be enough for us? Or would we find ourselves needing more?