Faith without evidence
This week is on Habakkuk 3:17-18:
In simpler times, if you didn't have a harvest lined up, you were probably going to starve to death, or at least lose your remaining possessions. For Habakkuk, there are no signs of a prosperous future, or even of one that will meet basic needs. There's no buds on the crops that are supposed to produce fruit. Basic staples and cash crops are non-existent. For us nowadays, it would be no money in the bank, no food in the cupboards, no job, no prospects for finding a job, empty grocery stores, a crashing stock market, no eligibility for public assistance, eviction notice on its way, no health insurance, no transport, no hope, and winter is coming. It's not a good situation, and there's nobody who can predict a good outcome based on that sort of evidence.
Picture it: No income, no food, no reserve cash or provisions, soon no place to stay, and the only things people are forecasting are doom and gloom. Everybody's in the same boat. You can't borrow from your neighbors because they're broke too. The Christian thing to do would be to put on your happy face and say "God's got me covered. Praise him!" but how many people would be able to say that and honestly mean "I'll be OK. God will provide what I need," and not just be trying to look spiritual?
It takes some serious faith to believe a good outcome is on its way when all of the evidence points to disaster. Any fool can say "Tomorrow will be like today, or maybe even better," when things are going well, but who can say it when things are bad? (at least without coming off as crazy!) What do you do when what you've invested in has produced no fruit, what you rely on has disappeared, and what you hope for shows no sign of appearing? Turn to God. Don't just refrain from throwing up your hands in despair and waiting for death. Actually rejoice! Let God be God and do what can't be done.
People have so many layers now between them and prosperity or ruin that they've forgotten who God is. Our relationship now is with bank statements, machines, warehouses and cash registers. Nobody looks to God directly for their needs anymore, or even sees the limits of what our hands can produce. Our work can only bring us so far. And, more than that, the world is far bigger than can be explained by science. Our ancestors instinctively knew it, and we can too. When all you can do is turn to God, because you've exhausted all of your other options, that's a great opportunity to reestablish that lost relationship. Be thankful for that, and look eagerly to God to see what he'll do.
Faith without evidence is the best kind, because it defies reason. We can't give glory to science for doing such a good job of predicting the future, or to anything else we've created. God gets 100% of the glory. And on top of that, we get blessed without having to do anything but accept it. Habakkuk understood that, and was genuinely glad despite the forecast. He knew that just as there's an unknowable element of randomness in life that brings disaster, there's a wild card in God that can and will rescue us from it. No matter who you are, or what times you live in, you've got to admit that's pretty cool.
During dinner, I usually watch a little TV. The show I've been watching lately is a reality show where three people live on a Victorian farm in England and try to live life like people did in the late 1800s. The amazing thing to me was that even in relatively modern times, just over a hundred years ago, almost every aspect of people's lives was related to how well the crops did. Harvest your wheat too early or too late, and your whole year's work is in vain. If your sheep don't produce healthy offspring, pretty soon you have nothing. No matter how hard you work, there's always that unknown factor like a badly timed rainstorm or a sudden outbreak of a crop disease that will completely destroy your investment. Without a feel for that, it's hard to see what Habakkuk is really saying here.Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior
In simpler times, if you didn't have a harvest lined up, you were probably going to starve to death, or at least lose your remaining possessions. For Habakkuk, there are no signs of a prosperous future, or even of one that will meet basic needs. There's no buds on the crops that are supposed to produce fruit. Basic staples and cash crops are non-existent. For us nowadays, it would be no money in the bank, no food in the cupboards, no job, no prospects for finding a job, empty grocery stores, a crashing stock market, no eligibility for public assistance, eviction notice on its way, no health insurance, no transport, no hope, and winter is coming. It's not a good situation, and there's nobody who can predict a good outcome based on that sort of evidence.
Picture it: No income, no food, no reserve cash or provisions, soon no place to stay, and the only things people are forecasting are doom and gloom. Everybody's in the same boat. You can't borrow from your neighbors because they're broke too. The Christian thing to do would be to put on your happy face and say "God's got me covered. Praise him!" but how many people would be able to say that and honestly mean "I'll be OK. God will provide what I need," and not just be trying to look spiritual?
It takes some serious faith to believe a good outcome is on its way when all of the evidence points to disaster. Any fool can say "Tomorrow will be like today, or maybe even better," when things are going well, but who can say it when things are bad? (at least without coming off as crazy!) What do you do when what you've invested in has produced no fruit, what you rely on has disappeared, and what you hope for shows no sign of appearing? Turn to God. Don't just refrain from throwing up your hands in despair and waiting for death. Actually rejoice! Let God be God and do what can't be done.
People have so many layers now between them and prosperity or ruin that they've forgotten who God is. Our relationship now is with bank statements, machines, warehouses and cash registers. Nobody looks to God directly for their needs anymore, or even sees the limits of what our hands can produce. Our work can only bring us so far. And, more than that, the world is far bigger than can be explained by science. Our ancestors instinctively knew it, and we can too. When all you can do is turn to God, because you've exhausted all of your other options, that's a great opportunity to reestablish that lost relationship. Be thankful for that, and look eagerly to God to see what he'll do.
Faith without evidence is the best kind, because it defies reason. We can't give glory to science for doing such a good job of predicting the future, or to anything else we've created. God gets 100% of the glory. And on top of that, we get blessed without having to do anything but accept it. Habakkuk understood that, and was genuinely glad despite the forecast. He knew that just as there's an unknowable element of randomness in life that brings disaster, there's a wild card in God that can and will rescue us from it. No matter who you are, or what times you live in, you've got to admit that's pretty cool.
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