Complaining To God
Habakkuk 1:1-11
“How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” vs. 2
It’s Just Not Fair
OAKLAND — Three days from finishing a three-month personal challenge to put others first, Jose Antonio Durante left a church event in East Oakland to help a stranger who had run out of gas. That act of kindness would be his last. On Friday night, Durante was attending a church leaders’ appreciation event at the Eastside Arts Alliance at 22nd Avenue and International Boulevard when a church family with a baby reported that they couldn’t exit the driveway because a stranded SUV was blocking it. Durante and his friends quickly stepped in to help the motorist, whose SUV had run out of gas, move the vehicle and ask him what else they could do to help.
As he and two friends pushed the car, a man who admitted to police he had consumed alcohol and used methamphetamine before getting behind the wheel plowed into Durante, got out of his truck and ran away, witnesses said. The 39-year-old Pittsburg man later died at the hospital.
“He wanted nothing in return. That was the most remarkable thing about him,” said Sanjev Desilva, a youth leadership director of the Mosaic Project, where Durante worked. “If you
tried to give him gas money, he’d refuse it.”
His actions in the moments before his death personify Durante, friends said. A devout Christian and church youth director, he helped people move and offered rides and meals to anyone in need.
“Jose was committed to serving others to the end,” said friend Josh Harper, a volunteer council member with New Hope Covenant Church in Oakland who knew Durante for two years. “Jose was one of the most loving, energetic, and joyful people we have known.
“Jose’s deep empathy for others drove him to build meaningful and impactful relationships with people from all backgrounds.”
The night had been far different for Oakland resident Celso Tapia Lopez. The 37-year-old Lopez had been drinking alcohol and using methamphetamine that evening, he told investigators after his arrest later that night, yet he set out in a borrowed truck and was driving to a hardware store to buy a tool for a weekend construction job.
While Durante and the other two men were pushing the car, police said, Lopez was speeding down International Boulevard about 7:45 p.m. before he rammed Durante, pinning him between the two cars.
Durante was rushed to Highland Hospital in Oakland with major internal injuries and was later pronounced dead at 10:07 p.m. No one else was injured.
Although Lopez left the borrowed 2001 Chevrolet Silverado truck behind and ran away, police tracked him late Friday night to an East Oakland home, where he was found hiding behind a garbage can. He was arrested and was charged Tuesday with felony vehicular manslaughter and felony hit-and-run causing death or injury, a spokeswoman from the Alameda County District Attorney’s office said. He remains in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on a no bail hold. Lopez has at least three prior driving offenses in Alameda County, including a 2002 DUI conviction and a running a stop sign and driving without a valid registration or driver’s license last year, police said.
In a 2011 personal essay, Durante described how he saw firsthand the effects of social injustice, including poverty and war, during his childhood in Guatemala. He immigrated to the United States when he was 12, attended school in Colma and South San Francisco, and earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from San Francisco State University.
It didn’t take long for him to find his true calling, according to his sister, Heidi Pese, of Antioch.
“I couldn’t stay away from church and the nonprofit world,” he wrote in the essay. “When I’m not doing motivational speaking or church-related work, you can find me pondering how to have the most impact in people’s lives.”
Church colleagues and friends have set up a fund to help his family with funeral and other expenses; by Wednesday afternoon, they had raised more than $9,400. Donations to the Jose Durante Memorial Fund can be care of the New Hope Covenant Church, 2626 E. 16th St., Oakland, Calif., 94601.
“The ones he was trying to reach out to were the young ones and people just really felt comfortable around him and they knew he would be there for them,” Pese said. “He just brought a lot of joy in life to every room and every situation.”
Read Passage – Habakkuk 1:1-11
The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.
Habakkuk’s Complaint
2 How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? 3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. 4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
The Lord’s Answer
5 “Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. 6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own. 7 They are a feared and dreaded people; they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor. 8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk. Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swooping to devour; 9they all come intent on violence. Their hordes advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand. 10 They mock kings and scoff at rulers. They laugh at all fortified cities; by building earthen ramps they capture them. 11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on—guilty people, whose own strength is their god.”
Back and Forth
Here’s a quick overview of the historical background of this book.
Israel had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years when God liberated them from the Pharaoh. After wandering in the desert for 40 years God brought them into this land he promised them which we know as Israel. They begged for a king. God wanted to be their king but they wanted a man and God finally let them have one, Saul then David, then Solomon. After Solomon the kingdom split in two; 9 ½ of them, this upper part (show map) was called Israel while this area while 2 ½ of them settle in this area this lower section became known as Judah. Each had their own king. There was a few good kings but most of the kings were disobedient to God, served idols and just plain led the people away from God. There was this back and forth thing going on getting closer to God then pulling away from God. The longer it went on, the worse the kings seem to get and further from God they went. In 720 BC Israel fell as a nation and were taken over by the Assyrians and other groups who came to conquer the land. The prophets tried to warn Israel but they wouldn’t listen. Enter Habakkuk. He begins preaching to the Southern kingdom, Judah, because they are on the same collision course that Israel was on, maybe even getting worse.
He is preaching to Judah just as the Babylonians were emerging as a world power. The Assyrians who had threatened Judah for so long were but a memory. Their disobedience had gotten so bad and they had fallen away from God so much that they were really into some bad things, atrocious things, like Baby and child sacrifice, the Temple of god had idols of Baal, Molech, and Aseroth, they had temple prostitutes (both male and female), and the list goes on. They were getting further and further away from the true God.
Getting Real With God
Habakkuk did not want to see what happened to Israel happen to Judah but…things were getting worse. Things were bad in Israel and things were bad with the Babylonians asserting control in the region. They were ruthless and evil group who stopped at nothing to terrorize and abuse others to gain control and leverage over others for their own gain. With that in mind listen again to verses 2-3:
“How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?” vss. 2-3
One of the things I love about Habakkuk is that he isn’t afraid to voice his heart to God. I’m calling this Getting Real With God. It’s true that God knows our heart but when we hear some tough questions come out verbally we almost say “Can you say that to God?” Here is the thing about Habakkuk, he know that God is just, he knows that God is merciful, and he knows that God is patient and will give men every chance to repent and turn back to him. His questions may sound like he is doubting God, I believe he is questioning God about his patience and it this really it for the end of Israel.
When I ask myself why it’s so hard to be real I’ve come to the conclusion that I think we struggle with being honest with those closest to us because we have the fear of being rejected or not loved. What if people really know how we feel. What if they really get to know me and don’t like what they see, hear, etc. Believe it or not, Habakkuk knows God will keep his word. He knows Israel is on the short list to be destroyed. He saw it happen in the north with Israel and it’s on the horizon for Judah. So what do you do with this? I believe that it’s a call to trust God.
A Call To Trust God
Habakkuk has learned to trust God enough that he is willing to open up and really tell God how he is feeling and what he struggles with and he knows God well enough know that trust he will act and he will keep his word. We learn really valuable things from Habakkuk about our call to trust God.
- Be On The Lookout
God’s first response to Habakkuk is be on the lookout for what God is doing. Verse 5:
“Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed.” vs. 5
When things are not going our way and especially in times of struggle, it’s really easy to take our eyes off God and focus on the negativity going on around us. And when we focus on the negative, the struggle, the difficult, those things get magnified and they get most of our attention. It’s interesting that God’s first response to Habakkuk is to get his eyes back on God and what he is doing around him.
If you feel yourself overwhelmed by all the negative things in your life, the evil that is taking place, the struggles of everyday life, there’s hope. There is a word for those things; distractions. Satan is masterful at causing distractions.
Ex. Eve in the garden. She had everything and what did Satan do? Distracted her to focus on what she didn’t have.
The answer is to train yourself; train yourself to look for God and what he is doing around you. I love God’s words to Habakkuk; be utterly amazed. That’s astonishment, amazement, marvel, wonder, awe. When God works it is amazing and leaves you staring in utter amazement. You have to shift your thoughts from the bad to what is good.
Exercise: Write down on your notes one or too good things that happened yesterday.
Let me thrown in a verse from David in Psalm 59:9-10:
“You are my strength, I watch for you; you, God, are my fortress, my God on whom I can rely.” Psalm 59:9-10
I believe David is saying that when things are bad and you feel like things around you are falling apart, you need to turn your attention to something you can believe in, something you can trust, something you can rely on; and something that will take your breath away. Underline and circle that two words; fortress and rely. You need a place to run, a place to trust and believe you’ll be safe, and a place you can trust, that is God.
2. Accept That God’s Plan May Be Different
The second part of God’s opening response it accept that God’s plan may be different. He says in verse 5b:
“For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.” vs. 5b
I would like to immediately follow this up with a verse from the prophet Isaiah:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
It might be a given to say that God’s thoughts and ways are not our thoughts and ways and that seems to make sense to us when others are hurting and we want to give them some hope. It’s a little harder to accept when you are going through it…and you may not like the answer and the way God is handling it. Really the bottom line, it comes down to expectations. We put expectations on things and then feel hurt and discouraged when the result is not what we expected. Now get this, we don’t mind when it turns out better for us. But what about when it’s not our way, when it doesn’t meet our expectations. Unfortunately many of us blame that on God instead of accept that his plan is bigger and better than we could ever imagine.
Ex. You pray for someone sick and they get better. Cool! But what about when we pray for someone to get well and it doesn’t’ happen, maybe even gets worse. Now wait a minute, that’s not what we expected, right?
I know it’s near impossible not to go into things with expectations. I can’t tell you not to do that because it’s how we are made up. But part of learning to trust God calls us to believe that what happens will work out for his glory.
3. Trust That God Is Good
The third part of learning to trust God that Habakkuk discovered is that we need to trust that God is good. Notice what God tells him in verse 6:
“I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people, who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwellings not their own.” vs. 6
This can be a real challenge to for us. It stretches us and sometimes is uncomfortable. Would God really use the Babylonians? It comes down to trust, trust that God’s will will be done, that in the long run his ways will prevail. Trust is letting God work his plan, his will, his way and know that he will never let you go and that he only wants the best for you, even if you might not see it.
Ill. A little girl and her father were crossing a bridge. The father was kind of scared for the safety of his daughter so he asked his little girl, ‘Sweetheart, please hold my hand so that you don’t fall into the river.’ The little girl said, ‘No, Dad. You hold my hand.’ ‘What’s the difference?’ Asked the puzzled father. ‘There’s a big difference,’ replied the little girl. ‘If I hold your hand and something happens to me, chances are that I may let your hand go. But if you hold my hand, I know for sure that no matter what happens, you will never let my hand go.’
Let me follow this up with a verse from Romans 8:28:
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
See God will work things for god in some things, I mean in most things. No, really trusting God is believing this verse is true…in all things. That’s the things we don’t understand, the things we don’t agree with, and the things that somehow work out for your good. Trust is a difficult thing and takes a lot of work. I believe, like Habakkuk did, God will keep his word.
Strength In God
And here’s the point of this whole dialogue between God and Habakkuk; whose strength do you trust the most? Notice how God ends his response to Habakkuk, verse 11:
“Then they sweep past like the wind and go on—guilty people, whose own strength is their god.” vs. 11
The Babylonians trusted in their strength. God is calling Habakkuk to trust in His strength. Our circumstances will change. We will have good times and difficult times, sometimes very difficult times. The good times and the struggles are not a reflection of how much God loves you. He will always love you and that will never change. What you have the choice to do is to trust in your own strength or to trust God.
Remember:
You Are Loved Through The Struggles and Questions
