Habakkuk’s questions don’t have a simple resolution. His prophecy ends with a view of God’s awesome wrath, with the crops barren, a day of calamity coming, and a song of praise on his lips.
Habakkuk’s questions don’t have a simple resolution. His prophecy ends with a view of God’s awesome wrath, with the crops barren, a day of calamity coming, and a song of praise on his lips. What does that mean for you and me when we’re stuck in traffic and when we get the diagnosis?
Hello, friends, and welcome back to Questioning God, a prerecorded podcast from The Austin Stone that's following our study of the book of Habakkuk.
In this season, we've been following the title character Habakkuk as he asks deep, sometimes even brazen questions of God and considering how those questions and tough prayers might actually build his faith and ours, not destroy it.
My name's Val Hamilton, and I'm joined today for our final episode, the finale, with Ross Lester and Tyler David.
Can you believe we made it to the final episode?
This is the finale.
This is where we find out who the bad guy was the whole time.
It was me.
It was Ross.
Big, big reveal.
Big reveal.
Right?
Or actually maybe where we get the like $250,000 like egg money, the jackpot.
Now you're in.
Now I'm in.
Yeah.
You've been getting paid this whole time?
We weren't going to bring it up.
This seems like the time we actually have to tell him.
Egg money?
Is that what eggs are now?
Egg money.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Inflation is insane.
They are $250,000.
No, I was actually watching the Great British Baking Show.
And this.
I love that show.
I know.
I'm like, this feels like your anthem right here.
But it is hilarious to me that after 20 million episodes, you finally get to the end.
You've made and baked a thousand things and you are awarded a cake stand and a picnic for your time.
It's so British, which is what I love, right?
You get to the end and you're the winner and they're like, just so you know, you're not actually a big deal.
It's like, let's make it out.
That show, it is enjoyable, but it is like they said, what if we did reality TV, but made it even more boring?
It's like, what if we took this thing that already isn't that entertaining and made it dull?
Dull.
Duller.
That's why the bakes are in like real time.
That's exactly right.
You have four hours and they're like, we're going to film all of it.
That's exactly right.
There they are, just whisking.
Yes.
And they're so nice.
For the next 35 minutes.
Yes.
They help each other.
They're like, I'm out of sugar.
I would be like, that's going to make your cake be bad.
That's how we do it here.
But they're like sharing sugar.
I love it.
We have so much to learn.
So much to learn.
And also through this podcast, we are learning things about Habakkuk and how God moves.
Let me transition seamlessly to our podcast for today, where we have been looking, we asked questions.
In our last episode, we got to review questions from people in our church as they've been wrestling with God.
And now we're coming to the close of Habakkuk.
We're seeing how God actually responds after Habakkuk brings the complaints.
He asks the questions.
He does the wrestling.
God tells him who he is.
And then Habakkuk responds back to God.
That's how the book ends.
And so we're going to look at what can we learn from that exchange, from what God says to Habakkuk and how he responds.
So I'm just curious for you guys, what were some of your bigger takeaways from that exchange between God and Habakkuk?
What do we take away and learn about him, about ourselves, and about the story?
I think there's a similarity between how God responds to Habakkuk and how he responds to Job.
Yeah.
And I think it can be quite hard for people to read who are suffering, right?
Because God seems almost off topic.
And what he is doing is he's zooming further out and just saying to them, your categories are too small.
I think both Habakkuk and Job are looking for answers immediately to their suffering.
And that's so normal when we are suffering, of going like, give me a category for this.
I think that's part of how Job's friends fail him, is they just want to get too quickly to a resolution.
This must mean that.
You must be ungodly, and this is discipline.
Or here's what I think God is doing.
And in both of those answers, God goes like, let me just zoom out to a cosmic level and go like, I'm way bigger than your categories, and I'm worthy of worship in the midst of them.
That can feel in our woundedness like God doesn't care, but it actually is him providing the biggest care because he's going like, I need you to be able to see who I am and what I'm doing on a cosmic scale.
And therefore, the fact that I'm answering you in the midst of this is way more helpful and way more powerful than a simple one-to-one resolution.
But that does take faith to see his care and his kindness in the midst of that.
And so I know when I've been suffering or others have been suffering, they're going like, well, which category is this?
Is this discipline?
Is this punishment?
Is this God sanctifying something in me?
Is this him redeeming something that I'll get to see in the next, you know, immediate time frame?
And so often he's going like, it could be some of those things, but he's also doing all of these cosmic works that you've got no way to see.
Yeah.
And that's actually encouraging.
Well, and you're always going to want specific answers.
Right.
And I think it's maybe to say it in a way that has helped me over the years, because I know there's something about does Christianity give real answers?
And sometimes it can be presented like it can give you all the answers or none of the answers.
It's either you get everything explained to you or you just have to trust like blind faith.
And I think God gives us answers, but with his response to Backuc and to Job and to us, he's always going to go to that highest level of, but who do you trust?
Yeah.
Right.
Those ultimate answers of, it doesn't matter what I say.
What if I tell you the answer and you don't like it?
It has to do with, will I trust you?
I know for me, like when I was one of those times I referenced earlier that I give much detail to where I came to a real crisis of faith in college, I remember having this interaction with somebody and it just spun me out.
And I really was like, I remember calling Lauren and telling her we were dating at the time.
Like, I don't think I believe anymore.
Like I genuinely was at that level of like, I'm done.
And one of the things I'm telling her and I'm so spun up in a situation that had happened.
And I remember she said, she said, she asked a question of me and it reminded me of a question that God asked Adam when they were hiding after they had sinned.
She goes, who did you talk to today?
Like what happened?
Like who?
It was that word who.
And I remember it came flooding into my mind because all these questions for God that I felt like he didn't give me answers to.
And it came flooding in my mind where an Adam, when God looks at Adam and says, who told you you were naked?
Who are you listening to?
And it was this moment of, there's always different sort of explanations and questions and answers and everyone trying to give categories to give certainty.
Right.
But there is a, who gets to decide what's true?
Who gets to tell you what's right?
And there was this reminder of, hey, God has a unique perspective.
And so he will give me, there in Christianity and following Jesus, there are real answers to some of our questions.
But those answers aren't going to mean anything if I don't trust the one talking to me.
And so there is a sort of like zooming up and zooming down that happens in interacting with God in these areas where you, yeah.
Cause I mean, it's good to remember you're not the first Christian to wrestle with doubt.
There's a lot of Christians in church history who have thought so deeply about all the same questions and maybe have gotten more revelation than you from God and they can give you some help.
But again, I have, I'm the kind of person who will do all the deep diving and all the reading and all the commentaries and all the YouTube links and the hour, you know, all the different things.
And I, and I'll still feel unsatisfied because there is a sense of, but is God trustworthy?
There is a, because I'm not omniscient, I can't know all things.
At some level, I have to trust somebody.
Right.
And that's where I think it is, who are you listening to?
And that's where I think when God responds to Habakkuk and to Job and to us, the ultimate question is who gets to decide what's true for you?
Who gets to decide what's best?
Right.
And I think that's the hard human part where we think, I want specificity.
You'll get it sometimes.
But a lot of times I just have to trust that God has, knows more and is good.
Yeah.
It feels like he's really emphasizing his relationship to the universe and creation and to time and space and all of the things that are his constructs that he's at the center of.
Yeah.
Which kind of is this huge perspective shift, this kind of blowing up of who am I talking to?
And yet also God's relationship to Habakkuk.
And yet Habakkuk has the ear of this being.
Yeah.
That Habakkuk has the attention and the conversation with someone who is of this caliber, whom the universe actually does center on.
And I can imagine people who are listening feel that tension of, if God really cared, he would so condescend and just explain himself in my very specific way.
He would give me the answers that keep me up at night.
But I mean, what you're saying, what I think I agree with is this reorientation of, no, like he is the center, pulling us out of, no, no, no, we're a part of the story that he's telling.
How can that actually be more comforting than getting the answers we think we need so badly?
Yeah.
And we live in a privileged position that Habakkuk didn't even get to see, right?
And that we've got to see the great condescension of God.
Yes, right.
Where he steps in into the midst of it.
But even then, through the resurrection, he wants to remind us of like, I'm still other than you.
I'm still in a category of my own and you should want me to be.
Right.
Because it shows a level of power that you can't even imagine.
I mean, and that's part of what he says to Habakkuk.
Right.
You wouldn't believe it.
Right.
If I showed you all the things that I'm doing.
I'm doing this reviving work.
You wouldn't even believe it.
You don't even have the capacity to see.
And I think that's actually helpful when we have the faith to press into who do we believe.
Right.
It just reinforces too the creatureliness.
Like you're saying, like you can't hold the things that I hold.
You can't see all that I'm doing.
Just reinforcing.
I mean, this isn't how you would write it if it wasn't real.
Right.
And that's what I think it's when you're trying to, in the midst of doubts and suffering, all the questions, it's how do I pray with honesty and humility at the same time?
Those tend to be one or the other.
I'll be honest about what my real questions are, but I won't have the humility to receive an answer.
Or I'll be humble and have a right posture, but I won't say what I really think.
And I think it's having those two things together so I can pray honestly, but then have the humility to say, no, if God is who he says he is and he's infinite, that he literally could not explain to me all of it because I'm not infinite.
So I actually can't have the amount of knowledge he has.
So that's where I think so often with Job and Habakkuk and us, he does zoom out to his role as creator to go, no, no, I don't think you understand.
Like, let's do a math equation.
Right.
Like infinite and finite, they can't relate to each other at some level.
And so I do think that's where my ways are higher than your ways.
And I want to help people know that's not a cop out as if there's no answers to questions.
Right.
But it is a reality of, but there's an infinite being.
And so at some level, the humility is not just saying I might have something to learn.
Humility is saying I definitely always have something to learn.
Right.
And I think that's the posture that we all have to grow in.
And when you're suffering, it can soften you or it can make you feel entitled.
And I think that's where we, again, we're all on a journey here.
So it's understandable if you are that.
But there is a little bit of like, you owe me explanation.
Right.
Which I can completely relate to.
Right.
But I do think that is when you're in that posture, when you feel owed.
Yeah.
It's always going to be difficult to receive the word of God because he's not trying to Or crown you.
I think when we say we want God to speak to us, we want God to crown us.
I want him to know.
Answer my demands.
You submit to me and tell me what to do.
Right.
And this is where God's kindness and his slowness to anger and his mercy and his kind.
Yeah.
The fact that, I mean, another way to look at it and this, I don't want to feel too harsh, but it is like the fact that he's even listening to the complaint.
Right.
Exactly.
Because if you reverse the roles, we have very little patience for people that depend on us who question us.
I mean, every parent in the world is like, hey, like gets it immediately.
And I'm like, if someone that was so dependent upon me as I am of him questioned me the way that I question him, my patience would be like, you get one time.
You get this one opportunity.
How much do I have to prove myself?
How much do I have to show you?
Right.
That's how we would do that.
That's exactly right.
And that's part of why the Habakkuk narrative in the way it's written is so powerful because he asks the second question.
So he asks the first question, which is the big and brazen one.
And God goes like, well, I'm raising up the Chaldeans.
Right.
And Habakkuk goes like, do you know the Chaldeans?
Are you those guys?
And it's at that point that God goes like, I know them better than you do.
Right.
And here's what I'm going to, here's how I'm going to judge them.
Right.
And he describes that in vivid detail, but he lets him ask the second question.
Right.
And Habakkuk does in faith, which is amazing.
It is.
It is.
Well, so we see what God says to Habakkuk and then Habakkuk's response, which is like Job's, the sense of awe and worship for God, even in the midst of nothing changing about the circumstances.
Nothing changed about the suffering, the evil, the injustice that he saw.
And so you then see this picture of Habakkuk responding in worship.
And it just, I think that visual image of someone worshiping God in the midst of circumstances that don't seem to warrant it, even though he's had this exchange, right?
Like he's seen God probably more accurately.
God's showed him again who he is, what he's doing as much as his finite brain can handle.
And yet it makes me think about today.
And when you see people who are worshiping in the midst of circumstances that are completely unexplainable, where you're like, this is not the right response to what's happening to you.
I mean, it's such an opportunity to showcase the value and centrality of God.
I wonder if you guys can think of a time where you've seen that and where you've gotten to be a part of a story like that.
I mean, I do think this is why songs in the church are so needed.
Yeah.
Because there is something about songs that help you express really deep emotions and sense of God and crying out.
I mean, there is a reason this Habakkuk has so much poetry in it.
I mean, there is something about it draws you out in a unique way.
And I have in my mind right now, like watching, and I think to be real practical, like even like the consistently showing up to Sunday worship.
Yeah.
Like when you're going through really hard times.
Because that's a place where you want to pull back the most when you're going through difficulty.
Just in my flesh, I do.
And watching people who are going through the darkest times of their life.
I have two people in mind right now.
They sit in the same spot every Sunday.
And getting to watch them, and from where I sit, I can see them in the corner of my eye as we worship.
And getting to watch them over the last couple of years go through hard times and not be super engaged but still come.
And doing their best to be faithful.
And then seeing them, I can literally see the progression of, oh, hands are raised again.
Oh, smiles are back.
But that wasn't there 18 months ago.
Right.
But there is this sort of way that I do think this is where worship in the church, both the private worship but corporate worship, there is something about being around other people's faith that gets to carry you.
You get to hear people sing when you don't want to sing.
Right.
And you get to sing and help people.
And I just think there's something profound about it because watching all of us get shaken to the core of who we are.
There's nothing – I'm at the irritable minimum of who I am.
Yeah.
And there is something poetic about that hanging on when I don't know how.
Yeah.
So I think that's why, again, practically songs in the church are really unique.
They play a unique role.
There's why when we sing goers and they're in dark places, they're always like, I'm listening to music on my phone as often as I can.
There's just something about it that helps us sing the thing that I don't know how to say.
Mm-hmm.
You know.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, I mean, Easter Sunday, so as we were recording this a couple of Sundays ago, I just got so choked up standing about to go on stage.
We didn't have any seats left at West, so I'm standing in this little weird side wing thing.
And I look out through the curtain and I see, you know, one of our partners who, you know, has got cerebral palsy in a wheelchair singing his guts out.
Oh, gosh.
About the resurrected Jesus Christ, even though I know the day-to-day difficulties that his life presents to him.
And I go like, oh, my goodness, that kind of faith.
And then I see another beloved partner whose wife we buried a couple of months ago and who we pleaded with the Lord to heal inside of heaven.
And I see him singing about the certainty of the resurrection and just go like how real that is.
Mm-hmm.
And then I see my son, hands raised.
Being a pastor's kid is like front row seat to cynicism, right?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Good.
Big time.
You know, he gets the worst of my energies.
He gets to see the hypocrisy in my character, which I try to keep as small as possible, right?
In godliness.
But it's there.
It's not zero.
It's there.
There's a gap, you know.
And yet there he is singing about, you know, the resurrected Christ and enjoying being amongst the body of Christ where his dad works.
And I just go like, oh, my goodness.
That's faith.
And what that does in my faith and how that spurs my heart to go watch people sing themselves through pain.
Goodness me.
It's such a powerful testimony of God's faithfulness.
I love that.
And it is such a stark contrast even to going back to the story of Job.
When Satan came to God and wanted to test Job, he wanted to prove that Job was only loving God and following God and faithful to God because of all the things God had given him, right?
Yeah.
He was trying to prove, look, if you turn up the heat in his life just a little bit, he's going to abandon you, right?
And I do think there's this sense of like provenness of faith that can experience suffering like that deep cost suffering and still lift hands and worship and know God is doing this.
You know, I think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who were like going into the hot oven.
And they're like, look, he can deliver us.
But even if he doesn't, right, he is God.
And I just feel like those pictures, those are not – and I hate to say the word opportunity because I don't want to diminish how painful it is.
Yeah, that's right.
But not every Christian is given the chance to really worship in the midst of that kind of suffering and show and display the kind of faith that believes and trusts God that much, right?
In some ways, you've always heard suffering is a gift.
And it's hard – there's – you know, it's like, gosh, I can't really wrap my mind around that or even embrace that.
And I'm like, keep that gift.
I would like the comfortable, easy life, please.
Yeah, right.
But there is something that the suffering does that rips off the veil of this world and shows you you're made for somewhere else and that you have a promise that you're going to make it there, you know?
Well, and back to Ross's point on the categories, and I think it's – I think you can only usually say that after having gone through it and God shown up in power.
Right.
It's hard to say it in the midst of it.
You can, but it's harder to mean it.
Right.
And I think that's where – back to the creatureliness is my role – I was thinking about the way Moses sends Deuteronomy of like, you know, the secret things belong to the Lord, but the reveal things belong to us and our children that we would obey them.
And there is a sense of my job just to be faithful and categories and meaning will come, but I don't have to fabricate it either.
I don't have to conjure it up.
And I think that's where we want to give people the freedom to go, you may not know what this means.
Because I would say suffering has this unique thing of it – even suffering that's not your fault, it still stirs up, oh, I didn't know I had that idolatry in me.
I didn't know that I had that pride in me.
And it wasn't – didn't come because of that, but when it came, it did stir that up, you know?
And it's – there's so many things happening in suffering that, again, when you're suffering, you want certainty and categories provide some sense of certainty.
But then if you go too soon, then you may say things you don't mean or you may come to conclusions before they're fully baked.
Back to the British Baking Show.
Yes.
We're right back at it.
All back.
Ashley, suffering is a lot like that show.
Yeah.
But I think that's where it's important to go.
The interpretation of this situation will take time.
And that's why all I need to do is to be faithful today and know, back to what you both are saying, this is a community project.
Yes.
This is a church project that we're doing together.
And that's where I just want to help people give that, again, that slowness to conclusion as to all that God's doing.
It'll take eternity to trace out all that he's doing in these really dark moments.
And so that's where you don't want to be trite and say it too soon, but you also don't want to be faithless and never believe God's not doing anything in the midst of it.
That's right.
You know, it's that tension we're trying to lock in together.
Well, and I wonder what you guys would say, because I know so much of this, too, is the perspective and kind of fixing our eyes on when God will fulfill his promises in full is actually in glory, right?
In some ways, it's the disappointment and the doubt that we feel is when we exist in a world where it's in some ways we have some of God's gifts and promises fulfilled, but they're not entirely fulfilled, right?
And so how can we keep our eyes fixed on where we are in history and where the promises are going to be fulfilled just to orient us and help us have the right perspective on what it's like to live here?
Yeah, I think it's the now and not yet tension, you know, that we're called to live in that we need to be reminded of again and again by faith.
I think if we have an over-realized eschatology, it can be really damaging.
And so, in other words, being overly optimistic about how things ought to go in the here and now sets people up with an expectation of the world and of themselves and of other people and even of the way that God works that no one's actually signed up for or agreed to that can then really lead to hurt and bitterness in the long run.
Yes.
So I think just remembering that, no, the world still is not as it should be.
Right.
And so suffering actually isn't abnormal.
It's actually something that everyone will endure in the here and now.
What will be abnormal will be the normal that we experience only on Christ's return.
And so I think having those time horizons in mind can help us to set good expectations for life.
Right.
So that we aren't always imbitered or deeply hurt when suffering comes.
It's going to have a pain of its own, but we add a pain onto it when we go like, I didn't expect this.
And so someone's got to be responsible for this.
Right.
That now and not yet tension is very helpful.
You know, I think the imagery that so many preachers have used, there was a season when preachers all used World War II imagery.
Oh, yeah.
But that imagery that they used of this, you know, we live between D-Day and V-E-Day.
Right.
So the war is actually won D-Day.
Like mainland Europe, we get a foothold and we get a Western Front in which we can, you know, the Nazis are overthrown.
But there's a long gap between D-Day and V-E-Day.
Right.
There's an inevitability to it.
It's going to fall.
Right.
We've won.
Right.
Right.
But the fulfillment of that will only come on V-E-Day.
And living in between those two realities is a helpful reminder for Christians.
Well, and to your point, I think living in the reality of what is right and the world and the promises and when they'll happen, I think it's, again, it's not meant to be a commercial, this episode for the church.
But being around God's people, being around spiritual things, investing in the holy habits of God's word and prayer and devotion to God, these are things that help orient us in what is.
Because shallow faith that is individualized and turned on itself, it doesn't always have the waterfalls of grace pouring into it that helps us remember where we are in history and who is holding us for the future.
And that's, I mean, I think for me personally, when I've gone through really dark times, what's helped me most is immersing my imagination in a biblical world.
Yes.
So for instance, because, again, everyone in the world is going through physical suffering and going through big questions.
It's not unique to Christians.
Right.
It is a, but then everyone has to interpret what it means.
And that's where we're, like, that's where the Bible steps in and goes, well, let me interpret for you what this means.
And so for me, when I was going through, I could not get myself out of panic or darkness or these thoughts and this stress and this pressure.
I could not get out of it.
And so I just remember it was memorizing and meditating on Psalm 23 and trying to immerse myself in a world.
No, no, no.
I'm in a world where I have a shepherd and I have all that I need.
Yes.
And I would just sit there and go, I don't believe that because I don't think I – And in Psalm 23 for me, it was like, and there's valleys and the shadows of death and I cannot – I don't have to fear because he's with me.
And it was kind of telling myself, like, I'm in a world where I have a shepherd.
I have all that I need.
And it was getting my – because I always find it fascinating the way, you know, you watch a great television show and you turn it off and you can still feel the emotions you had while you watched that show.
And in my mind, it's because I immerse my imagination in a world that doesn't exist.
It actually affected the way I feel.
I'm feeling like severance is real.
Yeah.
It's not real.
It's not real.
This is – well, we'll see.
We'll see.
Episode three.
That's exactly right.
But I've always found it fascinating.
I'm like, well, I'm like, what's happening?
Why do I feel something that's fake but it's a real feeling that I'm having and it can affect me for hours afterwards?
Right.
Because I immerse my imagination as if this was real.
So my whole being followed after it.
Right.
I think the same thing is true when it comes to biblical stories.
I need to immerse my imagination of like, no, no, no.
There may be valleys here and there's enemies here.
I have a shepherd who is going to make me lie down.
Yeah.
And I have to pray.
I don't believe that.
Right.
I don't think I have a shepherd.
This is the real thing.
But the real thing is what Psalm 23 says.
That's the real world that I live in.
Right.
I don't live in the world where there is no meaning and there is no purpose and I'm lost forever.
Yeah.
It's actually not the real world.
Yeah.
But our imaginations are so powerful in that way where I'm imagining that.
I'm fixating on it.
Right.
So I think that's a big piece of it is like particularly memorizing and praying through scriptures like that.
The Psalms are uniquely helpful in that way where they give imagery.
Like I just think maybe that's just from my story.
Psalm 23 was the only thing that got me out of the pit.
Everyone's helping me.
Everyone's encouraging me.
Everyone's.
But I had to do that hard work of it was particularly we're driving to Colorado for a vacation and I am just in my mind doom scrolling in a way.
I'm just thinking about the awful things that have happened or could happen.
Right.
And I'm like, how do I get out of this?
And I would just sit there.
I mean, Lauren's like, are you okay to drive?
I'm like, I'm fine.
I'm just gripping the steering wheel super tight.
But it was this sort of going through and going, no, no, no, Tyler, you have a shepherd.
You have all that you need.
No, he's with you.
He's going to set a table for you.
Like, for instance, when you're in suffering, you think the only thing following me is gloom and destruction.
And I'm like, no, Psalm 23 says all that's following me is goodness and mercy.
Like what's lurking behind me is not God out to get me.
It's his goodness and mercy.
But I don't believe that.
So it's I'm having to do that work of Holy Spirit, help me immerse myself.
Because Psalm 23 is describing the world as it actually is.
My other ruminations are not.
Right.
So I do think there is that sort of like, it is just the power of the human imagination.
And I think every night before you go to sleep and you watch a show, it's showing you how powerful it is.
That's right.
That world doesn't exist.
But it feels like it does.
Right.
So I'm like, how about the world as it actually is, as God says, I can follow into that.
Now it takes time.
It feels like steeping to me.
Like it takes a teabag and hot water to like get that actually happening.
You're smirk right now.
It's very British.
I like that.
The great British Bake Off show is really in my head right now.
That's all I'm...
Actually, could they sponsor us?
That'd be great.
We've said it enough.
Yeah.
I've said it four times.
I know it's legit.
So I think it is that sort of steeping in that.
Yeah.
And letting it begin to sort of change who I am.
That was really big for me to get out of a pit.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it is that idea of thinking on the things that are above existing in those spiritual realities.
It makes me think of even that story biblically where Elijah and Elisha are in that home that's whatever you called it back in the end, that's surrounded, right, by the chariots and everything.
And they're freaking out and they're like, oh my gosh, you know, and he comes back and he's like, we're surrounded.
And he tells him, go open the window again.
And he pulls it back and this time when he looks out, he doesn't just see the chariots, but he sees all of God's army around those chariots.
That's right.
And that has been real the whole time.
And this little gift that God gave to just let them see what's real.
Like I just, you know, in some ways that's what faith is.
Yeah.
Operating in the reality that like everything God says is actually playing out and will play out exactly as he says, no matter how off it seems in our circumstances.
Well, and when God shows up, because I mean, the metaphor for Jesus is he's light.
The light shows you what's actually dark.
So sometimes God giving you clarity on what's real, things can feel scarier.
You're like, oh man, there are a lot of things at stake.
There are real sins and evil in this world and it makes what's light brighter.
So I think it is going backward to the back of it because I'm going to receive God's word for what it is.
And because even I just think it's fascinating that he's like, I have an oracle, I have a vision, I have a burden from God.
First words, where are you?
And there is something about he showed me what was real because the prophets are always able to see themselves and the society they live in with clearer eyes and it never gets better.
It's always like things are awful and we've all normalized this.
So that's part of it of saying I need to let God help me see everything.
And sometimes it means seeing bad things for the worst than you think and good things are better than you think.
But you have to do that work of letting God's – I think specific text is what's helpful to get you out of this.
There is something about suffering where generalities begin to lose their ability to help you.
Like when things are good, you're like, yeah, God's good and he loves me.
That's great.
But then you're suffering and you're like, no, I need specific things that help me.
That's where I've just found specific biblical text have helped me more in those moments than just general categories.
And that's where we want to train ourselves up with those specific texts so I can – I just have something to cling to that's tangible in a way.
That's so good.
Well, I do want to transition to what we have done the first few episodes.
We took a break for our mailbag episode.
But that recurring segment called In Good Faith where we talk about those things that we are pursuing to keep our mind, like you were saying, Tyler, on the things above, to keep us under the waterfalls of God's grace.
So that those seeds of faith are nurtured and in some ways mature so that the doubts that we feel that sometimes go away and are overtaken by the faith that God brings through the questions that we ask.
And so in this last final episode, I wanted to just give you both a chance to respond to the people who are bringing questions like Habakkuk, who are wrestling with God.
How can they do that in good faith?
Keeping their eyes, nurturing the seeds of faith that they have been given, keeping their eyes on Christ.
But how can they do that in good faith?
How can they have questions and pursue them in good faith?
You know, Jonathan Edwards had a lot of things, but he had a concept of stirring religious affections, of basically figuring out what are the things that move your emotional essence, right?
Like your heart towards God and towards his reality.
And I've realized in my life, I need to be able to discern what are the things that drive me towards him.
And on the contrast, what are the things that pull me away?
And it's a bit like what Tyler was speaking about, like what pushes me back towards ultimate reality?
And what are the things that pull me into unreality?
Right.
Because there's lots of stuff that's competing for our attention all the time that's actually unreal, right?
It's not the universe as it really is, with Christ as the blazing center.
So what are the things that pull my heart towards unreality and then counter that?
What are the things that pull my heart towards reality?
And for me, the way God's wired me is there's something about creative genius and beauty, particularly in music, that pulls me towards reality.
There's just something about the various ways that 12 notes can be put together in different rhythms and melodies and harmonies to stir my heart.
And so the Lord has used that.
And so I need to stop doom scrolling and listen to a great record.
And I know that sounds so silly, but it's something that the Lord has used time and time again to remind me of the reality of who he is.
So like yesterday in the midst of some difficulty walking with people and their pain and their suffering on the way home, I get home and I listen to a Stephen Wilson Jr. record.
And I don't know where he is with God, but he has a line in a song that just says, God is good, life is twisted.
And I'm like, yes.
That's real.
God is good and life is twisted.
It's difficult to figure out.
It's like a Gordian knot, but God remains good.
And those two things are true.
But he used a moment of creative genius to just remind my heart to that.
So I need to press into times where I take long walks and listen to good records.
And that pulls me back to what's real.
And I think we all need to figure out what are those things in our lives that do that for us.
I just learned I had no idea there were only 12 notes.
That's really I'm not very musically inclined.
So I'm like, wow, all the music in the world.
But there really are only 12 in different combinations.
That's helpful.
That's making me worship too.
Mine is very similar to Ross's.
But because I'm in my 40th year, it's going to be agrarian.
Man, it's going to be unbelievable.
Warming.
But the way that I think about this as someone who's wrestled with doubts all throughout my faith is what's helped me is to see life with God is like an ecosystem, not like a light switch.
And I think that's where people struggle.
Is they see themselves as I have a doubt.
Now time to turn on faith.
You can't turn.
Faith is not where I can just turn it off and on.
It's more like an ecosystem where everything in my life is affecting this particular doubt.
But it's not always direct.
So it's like I'm reading an article years ago, National Geographic, about how having wolves in a forest helps the whole forest in this really sort of indirect way.
Because they eat this thing.
They eat that thing.
They take care of this thing.
Or like the way bees affect.
It's a, you know what I'm saying?
I'm telling you.
As you get in your 40s, man.
The metaphors.
I can hear the buzz.
But there is, I think the more that I have really sought, because I just so badly want to have the life that God has given me to manifest in reality.
I just don't want to settle for theory.
I don't want to settle for good doctrines that I don't experience.
I don't want to settle for the most precise statements that give me no joy.
I want to grab hold of life.
And I mean, just the way that I'm wired, I want to drink it down to the dregs.
Whatever the best kind of way life is, that's just the way that I've always been.
And it makes me unduly satisfied sometimes, unsatisfied.
But I think it's what's driven me to go, but I want to wrestle this to the ground.
But I think I found it to be an ecosystem where if I have been, I haven't been reading the scriptures, I haven't been repenting of my sin, I haven't been in deep relationships with anybody, and all of a sudden I want to turn on faith for big life questions, I'm going to find it flickering.
Why is it not turning on?
Right.
If I'm going through suffering, or I didn't get any sleep, or I haven't eaten a good meal with friends, or I haven't laughed with anybody, I haven't taken myself too serious.
These, they're not direct one-to-ones, because it's not like I read my Bible and all my doubts go away.
But I do think that there's an ecosystem of faith that says, but I'm thinking about my whole life under God.
So when doubts come, and they will, I've already been sowing seeds to the Spirit that can, because part of what suffering, and the reason it doubts always, because there's something that's self-evident to me that I can't make sense of.
I'm seeing something in a way that's broken and evil, and it doesn't jive with who God is.
But if I've been staring at God's beauty too in my life, leading up to that, I have all sorts of other images in my brain of like, no, but I have baptisms in my brain that tell me God's saving people.
Oh, that's good.
And I have actually my own story of ways I've been healed from things I think I could be healed from.
I need all that ecosystem of faith that I've been living in.
So when evil and suffering and all these atrocious things happen in our lives, it comes into, when drought comes, I've already been storing up water in a sense to go, I know how to get through this.
But again, because we, people want to live, all of us want to live compartmentalized lives, where I can kind of, what I think is polytheism.
I want different gods depending on the place that I'm in.
So here I worship the money God, and here I worship the family God, and here I worship the church God, and I want to be able to have whatever I want in every situation.
And I think the whole point of God being one and even Israel's uniqueness of there being one God is it's the same God everywhere.
And so I'm trying to be, I don't want to have to put on any sort of pretense anywhere I go, because I'm worshiping the same God everywhere I go.
But that's that hard work we have to do that's more, but it's more relational, it's more organic, it's more sort of everyday, so that when the times come, I'm not trying to crank up faith.
That's right.
That faith is there to be a stronghold for me when those hard times come, because they are going to come.
But that would be just immerse yourself in that sort of lifestyle, and I think a lot of the wisdom you're looking for is found on a pathway.
It's not like an answer key.
Right.
It is a path I've been walking on that I can see, less of like, here are my multiple choice, here's the right answer.
I just think human beings are made for love in the deepest possible way and truth, but love is the thing I'm after, and that's what you really want in this is am I loved?
It is the disciples in the storm, and they go to Jesus like, do you not care?
Yeah.
And I think that's the real question all of us have.
Underneath all the questions.
Underneath every...
And if I really think you care, I can endure.
That's right.
And that's where I've been.
We've gone back to it again and again, but there is no...
This is the uniqueness of the Christian faith.
Jesus is that picture of, I know he cares, because he gave his son for me.
That's right.
So if he gave us, I mean the most expensive thing.
Everything else is easy.
That's right.
You know?
He couldn't...
But I need to live in a world where Jesus is king and he loves me.
So when doubts come, I'm doing all that I can do.
And I love Hebrews 6.3, and we will press on and grow as he permits.
Like, I'm going to do all that I can.
Yeah.
But like, back to agrarian metaphors, ecosystems don't make rain.
Right.
I can just set things up for when the rain comes, I can grow.
Yes.
And in the meantime, I'll wait and I'll get everything ready.
Yes.
And I can trust him.
Right.
He's given me Jesus.
So everything else is going to be...
I'm going to be okay.
Right.
I'm going to be okay.
So is Bees and Wolves the title of your autobiography?
Bees and Wolves.
The Tyler David story.
Hey, these bees and wolves have destroyed this park.
We don't know what happened.
I don't know who brought them here.
We don't know what article he read.
Someone get Tyler.
Actually, they're eternal enemies that are fighting endlessly.
How many bees did it take?
It is a barren wasteland now because he brought in bees and wolves.
Oh, my goodness.
That's the best way to end this podcast.
I was just thinking, you know, I was going to say ending it with a loving God at the center of the universe, caring for us.
Yeah.
And the bees and wolves.
Let's not forget.
Yes, I love that.
Well, with that, we are going to wrap this podcast series.
We hope you have enjoyed questioning God and that it has been a blessing to you and stirred your faith towards him.
If you are hearing this and want to continue the conversations about God and his promises and what he's doing in the world and in humanity, we invite you to join us at any one of our six congregations that meet across the greater Austin area.
And we hope that as we go from this place, you will continue to press into and take your questions to God so that he can show you who he is and that he's for you.
We pray that your faith will be spurred on from here.
Bless you, friends.