See if these words give voice to what you might be feeling as you watch or read your favorite news outlet:

“How long, Lord, must I call for help and you do not listen or cry out to you about violence and you do not save? Why do you force me to look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Oppression and violence are right in front of me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict escalates. This is why the law is ineffective and justice never emerges. For the wicked restrict the righteous; therefore, justice comes out perverted.”

Habakkuk 1:2–4, CSB

As Christians, we know and trust that at some point Jesus will return and clean up this mess, but until then we want to ask, “When?” Or we ask, “Why not now?”

God’s response to Habakkuk gives us a clue as to how God might answer today if he were to speak to us directly:

“For I am doing something in your days that you will not believe when you hear about it.”

Habakkuk 1:5, CSB

In other words, we, as finite humans, cannot possibly understand how God is working in the world. From our perspective little of what we see around us makes sense.

The question comes down to whether we will trust that he is working even when the opposite seems to be true.

Part of my struggle with this is a myopic view of things. I struggle to see past today when God, who is outside of time, has eternity in view.

The Apostle Paul speaks to this when he writes,

“For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.”

2 Corinthians 4:17, CSB

Dare I trust that God will see me through the hardships I am called to endure? Dare I trust that somehow even the nasty things that life brings are used by God for my good and his glory?

I believe, help my unbelief.

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The story of Gideon has been on my mind all day today. If you are not familiar with Gideon, the story can be found beginning in Judges 6.

In particular, I have wondered about what Gideon was feeling before the angel showed up to call him into action. I find Gideon’s response to the angel fascinating:

“Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened? And where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about? They said, ‘Hasn’t the LORD brought us out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”

Judges 6:13, CSB

Was Gideon feeling a little overwhelmed by life? Did he feel like he had been abandoned? Did he think life was more than he could handle?

Gideon asked many of the questions we ask in life.

Recently, in our church life group, each member gave a brief synopsis of his or her life emphasizing the story of how we came to faith and where we are in our walk with Jesus.

What surprised me most about the testimonies was that every one of us had some significant difficulties in life that left some emotional scars. None of us had a perfect, nor an easy, life.

Jesus said in John 16:33, “You will have tribulation.” A promise that I have found to be more accurate than I would like.

In the midst of those trials, it can feel like God has abandoned us. We can ask the same question as Gideon, “why has all this happened to us?”

But God had not abandoned Gideon, nor has he abandoned us. Need I remind you of what the entire verse of John 16:33 says?

“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

John 16:33, CSB

Our response to the suffering is to be courageous. In seven instances in the New Testament, we are encouraged to “stand firm” amid difficulties and trials.

How can we do this? Only because we know that Jesus has conquered the world and will one day make it all right.

Stand Firm!

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When Jesus gathered his disciples for the last time before his death, something unexpected happened as recorded in John 13:

“Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into his hands, that he had come from God, and that he was going back to God. So he got up from supper, laid aside his outer clothing, took a towel, and tied it around himself. Next, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel tied around him.”

John 13:3–5 (CSB)

If you believe, as I do, what Jesus claimed about himself, you understand that when John talks about Jesus coming from God and returning to God, it refers to his divinity and his rule from Heaven until he returns. Elsewhere Paul writes this about Jesus:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.”

Colossians 1:15–17, CSB

Suffice it to say that Jesus is a very important person. The most important person that ever walked the earth.

Why, then, is he washing the disciples’ feet? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? They should be serving him, not the reverse. This goes against the normal social structure where the lesser serves the greater.

But Jesus predicted this during his ministry, saying that if you want to be first in Jesus’ kingdom you must be a slave or a servant (see Mark 9:35 and Mark 10:44). The way to greatness (and effectiveness) in Christ’s kingdom is through serving others.

But we don’t always see such humility in church leaders.

A friend recently showed me a video of a well-known, and I assume popular, preacher who was strutting back and forth on stage saying outrageous things that did not convey servanthood but conveyed swagger and self-centeredness. This preacher’s behavior is so unlike Jesus that I hesitate to call him a Christian preacher because his message contradicts what Jesus promoted.

When you encounter this brand of “Christianity,” the only response is to walk or run away as fast as you can.

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On my walk this morning, I was thinking and praying about all the brokenness in and around me. Specifically, I think of all the injustice I encounter and how our culture condones and sometimes even promotes it. I started to build a list of some of the things in this category, but the point is not what is on the list, but that there is a list in the first place. Each of us can think of many injustices that we see daily.

Then to further complicate the matter and frustrate me in the process, the church sometimes contributes to the problem,

• We gossip and call it “asking for prayer”
• We shun those who fall into sin and call it discipline or the pursuit of holiness
• We put pastors under economic and psychological stress and then wonder why they burn out or fall into sin
• Sometimes we create a culture that promotes harmony to the point that we treat codependency as a fruit of the Spirit.
• At the other extreme, the church can create a culture where it is acceptable to be angry all the time.

While walking I was reminded that I am good at finding excuses to justify my sinful response to the injustice. I can become passive when I should be active. I can say things that are not helpful or uplifting (i.e. complaining). I can become part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

As I considered all this, a sonnet by John Donne came to mind:

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

John Donne’s Holy Sonnet XIV

Donne gets at the fact that the first thing that I need to do in response to the injustice around me is to seek God to replace the injustice and sin in my own heart with his love.

Rather than responding in anger and manipulation, I need to respond in love

Rather than responding in passivity, and hoping the problem disappears, I need to respond in love.

Rather than responding in numbing behaviors such as busyness, hobbies, and recreational activities, I need to respond in love.

The problem is that responding in love is so messy and often inconvenient.

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