Raw Conversations: Unanswered Questions
Message Date: 10/1/23
Speaker: Pastor Renee Hidalgo
This series is for those times when someone asks the question, “What’s wrong?”. And the first word out of your mouth is, “
HABAKKUK
*
*Wrote Old Testament (3 chapters)
*Backwards (speaks
*Asks Difficult
Questions like:
How long is this going to take?
Why is this happening?
Is God listening?
Is God there?
Does God even care?
If God is good,
are bad things happening?
Habakkuk: these conversations take place around 600 years before Christ.
Northern Kingdom: Captured/Destroyed 722 bc
Southern Kingdom: Habakkuk’s Book 600 bc
Habakkuk 1:1-4
1 The prophecy that Habakkuk the prophet received.
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.
Hard Reality: Not all of Habakkuk’s questions are going to get
“To really know God, you have to wrestle though pain, struggle with honest doubts, and even live with unanswered questions.” —–Craig Groeschel in “Hope in the Dark”
ONE THING HE DIDN’T DO:
Habakkuk did not give God the ‘silent treatment’.
Silent Treatment: a refusal to communicate with someone, often as a means of punishment, emotional manipulation, or control.
ONE THING HE DID DO:
Habakkuk asked honest questions.
Habakkuk 1:2
2 How
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?
HOW LONG?
Psalm 13:1-2
A psalm of David.
1 How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Psalm 6:2-3
A psalm of David.
2 Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint;
heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony.
3 My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, LORD, how long?
WHY?
Habakkuk 1:3
3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
The Question behind the Question:
*God, are even listening to me?
*God, are you holding out on me?
*God, do you even care?
*God, are you who I thought you were?
*God, are you really good?
John 6:66-68 (AMP)
66 As a result of this many of His disciples abandoned Him, and no longer walked with
Him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve [disciples], “You do not want to leave too, do
you?” 68 Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You [alone] have the
words of eternal life [you are our only hope].”
“I don’t have all the answers. But I can promise you that I’ve asked all of those same
questions….”
“What if honestly acknowledging your doubts, as Habakkuk did, is your first step toward
building a deeper faith? What if embracing your secret questions opens the door for a maturing
knowledge of God’s character?”
“What if drawing closer to God, developing genuine intimacy with him, requires you to bear
something that feels unbearable?… What if it takes real pain to experience deep and abiding
hope?” —–Craig Groeschel in “Hope in the Dark”
Would you read the Bible Plan, Rejoice in the Lord: A Study in Habakkuk, with us?
https://bible.com/p/61288989/3587318f1b829260a6252bcd41e5d2dc