Habakkuk 1:2 (NIV) How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?
Habakkuk 2:1-4 (NIV) 1 I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. 2 Then the LORD replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. 3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay. 4 “See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright— but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness—
It is easy to sympathize with Habakkuk’s rage. How long, O LORD? Wait, God says, for it is not yet time to intervene. And if we are honest, many of us would reply that we don’t want to wait. Waiting in the grocery line is an irritation, waiting for a slow driver is infuriating. Wait, God says. It may not be in our nature, but it is in God’s, and God knows when the time is right.
Sometimes God’s timing seems to ignore our concerns. But this is only temporary and God has reasons. Will we trust in the meantime? We are called to wait in a spirit of trust, but not blind trust. Wait and watch, God says. Sometimes we have to ignore the visible data before our eyes that we might see the evidence God gives. Watch, and we will see that sin sows the seeds of its own destruction. Tyranny is suicidal. Watch and we will see truth holding true even if it is presently hidden from sight. Watch and we will also see God sowing seeds of life. Sometimes in our rush and anguish to help, we may dig up the seeds of life that God is planting and nurturing in His own way.
Wait and watch is the command. And the promise is the righteous will live by faith, with an ongoing trust and confidence in God. Trust prepares us for God’s work. Waiting and watching in a spirit of trust delivers us from complaints and deadening demands. Waiting in a spirit of trust reminds us that we need God.
As we wait, God fashions in our souls a gift. As we exercise the muscles of postponed answers and delayed knowledge, as we grow accustomed to seeing the evidence God gives, we develop the gift of discernment. Discernment is the ability to see the truth of God beneath the appearance of things. It is hearing the difference between what is real and what is just talk, between what needs action now and what can wait until a more opportune time, between the words best said and the words best left unsaid. Discernment can catch the details that others might miss and can ignore loud blaring of evidence that everyone else is screaming about. Discernment can distinguish between when it is time to comfort and time to confront. Discernment can do all of this and allow us to let in and live with the pain that everyone else is trying to shut out. As it was with Jesus, so it sometimes must be for us.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope February 7, 1993
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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