Eight of the Twelve - A very frank conversation.

It's impossible for me to remember every prayer I pray and every word I hear from God without writing it down. That's why I began to keep a prayer journal back in 2003. In it, I write my words in parenthesis to distinguish my voice from the Holy Spirit. This way, I'm able to see the flow of conversation and remember who said what. If anyone were to read how God and I interact without knowing the purpose or function of the journal, I may be accused of schizophrenia. I can especially see that during the parts where I use the words "Huh? But Lord..."

Journaling prayer isn't a modern innovation, though. Not that I'm putting my spiral notebooks on the same level, but some of the prophets record when God told them to write His words. Among them were Jeremiah, John when he received the Revelation, and Habakkuk.

As a child, I would refer to Habakkuk in Sunday school to see if the other kids knew it was in the Bible. Kind of like that old joke where the preacher opens a message with, "Please turn to the book of Hezekiah," and you laugh at the sound of onion skin paper fluttering around the room. However, in the last few months, I have seen or heard three Bible teachers refer to Habakkuk. It seems times have changed for the journaling prophet. He's at least a little more like Ferris Bueller and a little less like Anthony Michael Hall in the Breakfast Club.

Habakkuk wrote a discussion he had with God in prayer. It started as a complaint and the prophet asked God some pointed questions. After God's response, Habakkuk wrote a humble song of praise. I want to refer to C.J. Mahaney in his book Humility: True Greatness and its discussion of Habakkuk. "I believe we all need to listen intently to Habakkuk so we can emulate his example when our circumstances seem to contradict the character and promises of God. And let me assure you: At some point in your life, you will know circumstances that seem to contradict the character and promises of God, if you haven't already. At some moment in your future, life will not make sense." Mahaney then puts forth an excellent discussion on Habakkuk's transformation from pride to humility. Even though I recommend anyone to read his book, I want to focus on another aspect of this prophet. Habakkuk and God spoke candidly to each other.

I believe this also sets an example for how we can approach God when life doesn't make sense. Chapter 1 begins with Habakkuk's prayer, "Lord, how long must I cry to you without your hearing? 'Violence!' I cry to you, but you don't save. Why do you make me see wrongdoing, why do you permit oppression? Pillage and cruelty confront me, so that strife and discord prevail. Therefore the Law is not followed; justice never gets rendered, because the wicked fence in the righteous. This is why justice comes out perverted."

If this were written in my prayer journal, I may have said it like, "Lord, you told me to pray but it doesn't seem to do any good. People are still sinning wickedly around me and taking advantage of others. They're cruel and quarrelsome. They despise the Bible, the standard of truth, and choose to live their own way. But that affects me and everyone else, God. It's not fair!"

Mahaney points to Habakkuk's prideful tone in this prayer. God does address this, but I want to make note of how He does not reproach Habakkuk for asking the questions. In 1:5-6, God replies, "Look around among the nations! What you see will completely astound you! For what is going to be done in your days you will not believe, even when you are told. I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and impetuous nation, who march far and wide over the earth to seize homes that are not their own." God responds in turn with Habakkuk's prayer and goes on to tell him of the coming judgment. To paraphrase, "Yep, I'm pissed about their behavior, too. That's why I'm sending the terrorists in to level the place and take it over. Their army is stronger, faster, and meaner than yours. Diplomacy doesn't matter to them. But before you accuse me of allowing evil for evil's sake, you should know that I'm going to punish them as well."

Understandably, Habakkuk doesn't like this answer. My prayer journal would have read, "Huh? But Lord... that city they're going to destroy? I live there!" So the prophet asks God to explain Himself and in 1:13 writes, "Your eyes are too pure to see evil, you cannot countenance oppression. So why do you countenance traitors? Why are you silent when evil people swallow up those more righteous than they?" This kind of sounds like back-peddling. "Lord, I know I said we were bad, but these guys are worse. This doesn't make sense to me."

This reads like a very frank conversation between people who know each other. I want Christians to understand that we can come before God with this kind of familiarity, though not necessarily with the same attitude. I've met a good deal of people who tell me they want to hear God's voice. After we talk about how to listen, they often return telling me, "I didn't hear anything." My best answer to them is, "Keep praying. Keep listening." When my dad first began learning how to listen in prayer, he said, "I'm not going anywhere until you say something to me, Lord."

Habakkuk says something similar in 2:1. "I will stand at my watchpost; I will station myself on the rampart. I will look to see what He will say through me and what I will answer when I am reproved." He went somewhere by himself and waited quietly until God answered his questions. The rest of chapter 2 chronicles God's answer.

I'm not suggesting we treat God casually. These frank conversations aren't meant to diminish God's glory and majesty. We are, in fact, to respond in praise like Habakkuk in chapter 3. And like Habakkuk, our relationship with God should cause us to thank Him for Jesus. It's through Jesus' death and resurrection we are able enjoy this kind of intimacy. For Habakkuk, he knew God wouldn't completely destroy His people because of Jesus. In 1:12, the prophet said confidently, "My God, my holy one, we will not die." God had promised over and over to bring Messiah, Jesus, through the Jews. In 3:13, Habakkuk's song repeats this confidence and reminds the listener of God's plan for salvation. "You come out to save your people, to save your anointed one (Hebrew: Messiah); you crush the head of the house of the wicked (a reference to the prophecy in Genesis 3:15), uncovering its foundation all the way to the neck."

If I were to let you read my journals, you would see that my frank conversations with God haven't led me to show Him contempt. When He answers me, my love for Him grows because I understand more of His character and promises. I argue with Him less these days and, I'm happy to say, praise Him more.

Safe Answers, or God as a Magic 8 Ball.

For all of the grief I give my old Sunday school lessons, I really did enjoy them. It's hard to hate flannel graphs and construction paper and cookies and swing sets. The wordless book? Does it come with M&M's? Those were good days. I liked Sunday school up until about the third or fourth grade. Thanks to the sophisticated education I received in the public school system, I learned that information needed to become increasingly complex. Mathematics went from addition and subtraction to multiplication and division. American history eventually mixed in with world history. Music lessons went from singing Raffi tunes and patriotic classics to reading simple sheet music and playing recorders. But in Sunday school, the teachers offered the same simple answers to nearly every question I asked. "It's either Jesus, the Bible, prayer, or church."

My friend Erik told an old joke last weekend at a Christian youth conference. "A Sunday school teacher asked his students, 'what's brown, with a fuzzy tail, and stores acorns for the winter?' One of the students raised his hand and said, 'Well it sounds like a squirrel, but I know the answer has to be Jesus.'" We laughed. The kids laughed. Everybody felt a little righteous in knowing that they weren't like those people. But then the guest speaker stood for his half hour lecture. He talked about the common belief that God answers prayer in one of three ways, "yes, no, or in a little while." I'd heard that all through my early years in the church. I graduated high school hearing this from teachers. When the guest speaker brought this up, I leaned forward in my seat, hoping he'd go into the direction of the Holy Spirit in prayer. He was so close. Man was he close. But he left it at another safe answer. "God always wants the answer to be 'yes'. The closer you get to God, the more you'll ask for the things He already wants to give you."

My first thought was this, "You just simplified an already over-simplified answer." Why do we treat a complex, personal, and infinite God like one of those coin-operated fortune-tellers? I’m not saying that every simple explanation of faith bothers me. For example, what’s the basis of my salvation? Jesus came, died an innocent man for the guilt of humanity, and then got up. Sure, there’s more to it than that, but the simplicity of the answer is a true summary of the gospel.

It’s when people read something they don't understand in the Bible that they feel compelled to have a simple explanation. For example, the Bible says that it’s God’s will to heal people. Jesus told his disciples to pray for the sick and heal them. But when some people didn’t see this happening in their daily lives (how do you spell that one guy’s name? Warfield?), they start adding interpretations to life that don’t seem to have any basis in scripture. Suddenly, the gifts of the Spirit were “for those times, but not for now.” It’s like they gave God an easy way out of proving Himself. As if He needed one.

In terms of hearing God’s voice, allowing Him the answers “yes, no, or in a little while” presents another easy out. A person doesn’t need to hear His voice if they only ask God for something and then assume His answer based on whether or not it was given to them. But what about those times when a person is desperate and needs guidance, a solution to a problem? What if they exchange looked like this:

Man: God, what should I do?

God: Yes.

Man: Yes what? How will I ever reconcile with my dad?

God: In a little while.

Man: Okay, I guess that sort of makes sense. But what should I do when the opportunity presents itself?

God: No.

I remember having a conversation like this when I was, like, ten. But it was with one of those Magic 8 Balls. My friends were trying to tell me, “This thing can answer any question. It’s kind of spooky.” I asked questions I knew it couldn’t answer, like “who was President of the United States last year?” and, “Who is a better band, Soul Asylum or Green Jelly?” My friends protested that it couldn’t answer those types of questions. I said, “Yeah, but you can. So I guess that makes you smarter than the Magic 8 Ball."

People ask a Magic 8 Ball for an answer they know it can give. But it’s impersonal and limited. The Christian church says that God is personal (at the very least, a personality) and limitless. Still, if we don’t understand something about His personality, we come up with an answer that sounds more like an excuse on His behalf. In our brilliance, we have to bail God out of a situation He can’t handle with answers that people can’t refute.

If we never have to take the risk of trusting a God who we don’t fully understand, then we never have to risk obeying a command we don’t understand. We never have to humbly take our place as created and finite beings, giving authority to the infinite creator. We’ll never have to look stupid in front of our friends or co-workers. We can keep God at an explainable distance. And it also means that we’ll never have a real relationship with Him.

God pisses me off sometimes. Seriously, He does. I wrestle with Him all the time over things that I don’t understand. But in that struggle and in the conversations, we form a relationship. We develop intimacy and trust that couldn’t exist if I limited Him to answering Yes-or-No questions. A few years ago, I finally realized that it’s okay not to know everything about God. When someone asks me a question about my beliefs, it’s perfectly acceptable to say, “I don’t know yet.” It may not be a very savvy answer, but it’s better than making something up to save face.