History is important. I didn’t think so when what I learned of history were names and dates. Now, history is something more alive and thus meaningful to me. This has been recently demonstrated for me by the book of Habakkuk.
Habakkuk drills the Lord on why the wicked prosper. What a common complaint of humans, a paradox in that we betray both our pride and our like-God-ness with this appeal. But the answer he received was not the answer he wanted to receive. For the Lord told him that He Himself had His own aims in “prospering” the wicked. The Chaldeans were chosen by God to be instruments of punishment upon His people. This, however, did not exempt them from an accountability for themselves before God.
But in fact even us Westerners know, via Plato, Boethius, et al, that when the wicked man succeeds in wickedness, then he is most wretched. Experience (the guilt of the addicted, the despair of the rich) seems to bear this out as well.
The Lord is faithful. He has said He will bless those who believe He Is, and that He rewards those who seek Him. He has also said that He is sovereign, and everything works for good. He has a spotless reputation of integrity. Further, He has promised to never rest from His goodness. What more does He need to say?
So, let me, Father, when I cannot find You among the wasteland of my life; when I cannot see You among the atrocities of the events around me; when I cannot feel You in the pits I have wandered into myself; let me remember Your very-much-alive faithfulness. This is in fact what I want to do: I refuse to stress out, to dart around in panic, to wring my hands. The righteous will live by faith. Your faith is enough for me. Without condition. History will be to me a tableau of Your very character as it lives in the circumstances of human decisions. When I look to the past, Faithful. When I look up today, Faithful. When I imagine the future, Faithful.
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