In our first lesson, Habakkuk is not satisfied with his life or the world around him - and he doesn't hesitate to let God know about it. It sounds a little strange to our ears because he argues with God and he questions God. And if you have been raised like me, it was considered poor taste to question God in prayer. But Habakkuk just goes right ahead and says, “O Lord, how long...". Now let me ask you, if you were praying this prayer, how would you finish this question to God? What is it that you would ask of God, “O Lord, how long…” This can be a faithful expression of prayer to God. If we are being honest with God and with ourselves, then this prayer can be the beginning of an honest conversation with God about the things that really matter to us.
Example, You might pray, “O Lord, how long is it going to be until I find the job that I need…” You might pray, “O Lord, how long must my friend suffer from this terrible disease…” “O Lord, how long must I put up with this coworker who is driving me nuts…” “O Lord, how long until my son comes to his senses and quits doing the things that are destroying his life…”
God wants honest conversation with each and every one of us. He wants that line of communication open so that he can get all the way into our heart. But we need to remember that conversation is two-way and we have to listen to what God has to say to us. That’s what the second half of this lesson is about – listening for an answer. Habakkuk stands on the rampart at his watchpost to see what God is going to say. God encourages him in the waiting, “If it tarries, wait for it.” The idea of waiting in Biblical times is not a passive or forgetful thing. Waiting is active, it’s eager, yearning, engaged.
I have experienced a number of periods of waiting in my life. Sometimes we are just waiting for God to prepare the next thing he has for us. Right now I am active in ministry here - but for a number of months previous to my coming to Grace, I was in a holding pattern. My hours at Good Shepherd had been reduced and I was waiting for what it was that God was preparing for me. I kept busy by supplying for a number of churches in the area and led several workshops until he called me here. For me it is mostly a question of what area of ministry God wants me active in at a particular time. I see my ministry now as being "seasonal," not according to the calendar, but according to the needs that are made known in the body of Christ.
God tells Habakkuk, “If it seems to terry, wait for it, it will surely come –“ (one of the things I have had to learn in ministry is patience.) And the passage ends with God saying, “The righteous live by their faith.” Faith seems to be the theme of the lessons for today.
In our Gospel lesson, the disciples demand, “Increase our faith.” This seems to simply come out of the blue, and I forgot for a moment when reading that opening sentence, that everything has a context. Our lesson starts five verses into the chapter – and so to find out what is going on here, we go back to the beginning of Chapter 17. Jesus is telling the disciples what is expected of them. He tells them that they are going to stumble – but don’t be the one who causes someone else to stumble. He tells them that if someone else sins against them and repents, that they must forgive that person. Even if the same person does the same thing 7 times a day, they still must forgive. And that’s when they say, “Oh Lord, give us strength --- faith.”
And Jesus’ answer is interesting. We have a tendency to think in ‘degrees of faith’, but Jesus says that the amount of faith doesn’t matter. Even the smallest amount of faith is enough. Do you remember the story of the man who says to Jesus, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” I believe that it’s that doubt that begins to creep in when things don’t go the way we think they should. It’s the doubt that eats away at us. It undermines our faith, and makes it hard for us to tap our reserve of faith.
But Paul’s letter to Timothy can help us. Paul writes: “I am reminded of your sincere faith. . . “Rekindle the gift of God that is within you.” I just want to point out, it’s great to come from parents and grandparents of faith – but each of us has to develop our own faith apart from that of our parents.
The gift that God gives us is faith. But when faith wanes, we find a spirit of cowardice coming to take over. That spirit can take various forms, but they all serve to draw us even further from God and God’s purpose for our lives. Fear and doubt can be devastating but Paul suggests three ways to fan that flame of faith and to rekindle that fire.
God has given us a spirit of power to keep our faith from dying. Through prayer we ask God's Spirit to keep our faith alive. We need the fresh breath of God's Spirit to be the oxygen to keep the fire going. We don’t have to sequester ourselves apart from the world. Maybe we just need to take small moments throughout the day to remind ourselves of God’s love for us. Remember when you bathe/shower that the water of baptism brought you forgiveness and made you a child of God. At mealtime remember that God created all things and gives us good things to eat. At sunrise or sunset, remember that God gives us the sun to warm the earth and let the sight of a flower or bird or butterfly remind you of the beauty with which God surrounds us.
God has given us a spirit of love. That is the spirit that keeps us outside of ourselves. That spirit of love is compassionate and seeks to bolster those we care for; that spirit that leads us to reach out to others. That is the spirit that operates on both a corporate and an individual level to help those who are less fortunate – or who just need to hear about the love of God.
God has given us a spirit of self-discipline. The self-discipline of tending to our faith daily and stirring its flames with careful and thoughtful Bible study. Tending the fire of our faith in such a way will help us to become more Christ-like as the days go by. German theologian Dietrich Bonheoffer claims that we should always read scripture as if it has something utterly personal to say to us.
We know that faith is indeed the clue to living and surviving day by day. But our sense is that our faith is too fragile, too frail. Each of us is striving to live courageously while anxieties about job, family, finances, health, and personal self-worth crowd in upon us. So this is good to know - Faith is not simply “believing that God exists.” According to Brother David Vryhof from the Society of St. John the Evangelist, "Faith is not believing that certain claims or statements about God are true. Genuine faith presumes a relationship with God." Faith is believing that God will be God and do the things that God said he would do. Brother David goes on to say, "It implies a radical trust in God, faithfulness in one’s relationship with God, and a way of seeing the world as life-giving and nourishing rather than as hostile and threatening."
When we have faith in God, it isn't a question of how big our faith is, it is a question of how powerful our God is, and with God all things are possible! It is God's faithfulness to love us and to always have our best interests at heart.
Let us pray: Father, we don't ask you to give us more faith. We simply ask that you help us to use the faith that we have and trust you to do the rest. Amen.
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