Wisdom for times we didn't expect

Whilst seeking to retain a modicum of (well-deserved) humility, Ian Carmichael introduces the last of Matthias Media’s new resources for 2015…

I don’t get the privilege of preaching very often, so when I do it tends to be memorable—probably not for the congregation, but definitely for me.

Earlier this year I was preaching on Habakkuk 3, and in my introduction I shared a personal experience of having my world shaken 24 years ago by something unexpected and distressing. (If you’ve read my daughter’s recent GoThereFor article you can probably put two and two together and work out what it was.)

Having shared my personal story, I pointed out to the congregation that every minute of every day people’s worlds are being rocked by something they didn’t expect. Sad things. Awful things. Evil things. Much worse things than I’ve experienced.

“Families are torn apart,” I said, “as loved ones head off to work only to be struck down and taken away without any warning or any chance to say goodbye.”

After church had finished, I met a man who had come to our church for the first time. It turned out he was an American, and he was sailing around the world. He had moored his boat this particular Sunday in a bay in our area, and had walked up the road looking for a church to visit.

Having explained how he came to be in church with us that morning, he then said this to me:

What you said in your sermon this morning meant a lot to me. You see, when you talked about a loved one heading off to work, never to be seen again, I knew exactly what you meant. That’s what happened to me six years ago. My wife went off to work as a flight attendant. Her plane crashed, and all the people on the plane were killed. So in that sermon I really felt like God was talking to me.

Once I’d recovered from the shock that some of the things I’d said just might have had an impact on someone, and reflected on what that man’s experience must have been like, the personal reality of life’s distresses was once again brought home to me.

The trials and troubles of this fallen world are certainly not a subject confined to purely abstract and theoretical discussion. Nobody remains untouched by the harsh experiential reality of them for very long.

So where do we tend to turn in the Bible at such times? Ask a hundred Christians, and I’d be surprised if over ninety of them didn’t quickly say Job. Not without some justification, of course.

But I want to champion Habakkuk. Why?

Well, for a start, Job is 42 chapters long (over 1000 verses), and I would suggest reasonably complex to unravel. Habakkuk is a mere three chapters, but packs a lot into its 56 verses. It is certainly a considerably simpler book to mine for the gold.

Secondly, it provides an intriguing window into the way the prophet related to his sovereign God. Much of the book is a record of the dialogue between God and Habakkuk over the moral chaos in Judah and the impending invasion of the terrifying Babylonians.

Thirdly, it gives really helpful guidance on how we should relate to God when we go through similar hard times—summed up in the phrase quoted several times in the New Testament: “the righteous shall live by his faith” (2:4). Indeed, Habakkuk moves from something of a crisis of faith to uttering some of the Bible’s most beautifully expressed words of trust in God. In so doing, he provides a wonderful example for us.

So what is “living by faith”? What does it look like? What wisdom does Habakkuk offer us on how to do it? 

Well, you’ll just have to study Habakkuk.

If you’re looking for a way to do that, perhaps you’d like to work through the five interactive studies that Matthias Media published recently.

Living By Faith (five studies on Habakkuk) by Ian Carmichael is available now from: Matthias Media (AU), Matthias Media (US), 10ofThose (UK).