(We are Sent to Disciple an Insane World as Sheep Among Wolves) Habakkuk 3
I have a pastor friend who recently returned from Ukraine. He spent a few weeks there ministering to the thousands of fellow Christians in that presently ravaged land. His main message request to us in America is that we pray for Ukrainian pastors as they strive to lead their congregations to a deeper walk with God while the tragedies of war rage around them.
As I committed myself to pray for them it dawned on me that our own country, America, is also at war. It is a political-culture-values-policy war that gives every appearance of growing more divisive each week. I don’t have the space to discuss all the decisions, drifts, deceptions, denseness and denials rampant in the USA at present. In a recent national poll the majority of respondents agreed that America is on the wrong track. Another poll recorded that the percentages of Americans who believe in God is the lowest ever recorded. I see an obvious connection between the two polls!
In each of my columns I try to mention our national crises of division, disorder, desecration, and despondency. Yet most of all I see as the underlying issue the abandonment of the Judeo-Christian ethic that was the root cause of America becoming the greatest nation in earth history when it came to peace, freedom, prosperity and equality! Nevertheless we have, with all our flaws, some quite serious, stayed true to our founding commitment to build “a more perfect union.”
So, in this present American crisis and the chaotic unrest and destructive pattern raging in the rest of the world, what is the true, sold out Christ-believer to do?
First of all is to realize that it’s all happened before! Each generation has to deal—more or less—with their evil. Second, we must be confident our good God is in control, and he is allowing mankind to hate, fight, murder and destroy for some hidden, ultimate purpose. The answer for the Christian is to react like the prophet of Israel around 600 BCE…Habakkuk! I suggest my dear readers open their Bibles and read Habakkuk 3:16-19. I’m convinced these four great verses in Scripture will enable us to survive and overcome the evil in the human heart. He, like most of us, struggled to reconcile God’s goodness with his permitting mankind’s evil. (Think Ukraine!)
Long ago Habakkuk’s heart pounded because of a calamity to come! Yet he waited patiently even when financial ruin, agricultural collapse, social breakdown, famine, confusion and war came upon his people. In spite of the fearful circumstances Habakkuk determined to be joyful in God his Savior.
He declared, “The sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the deer; He enables me to go to the heights!”…and then ends his book! I, too, will end this article and end my despair over the current dysfunction, madness and craziness in my country. I’m confident our Lord will give me strength to endure it, speed to stay ahead of it and soaring in the heavens to think above it! I trust you fell the same@
I will continue striving to master and conquer myself and then keep caring and manifesting myself to the world of my fellow citizens with the truth given me by my Sovereign Savior!
[This article was originally published in May 2023.]
