If this is how you treat your friends

La Santa Teresa de Ávila was reputed to have said:

If this is how You treat Your friends, then it is no wonder You have so few of them.

I was reminded of this by a quote I read on an Internetmonk post. The author of the quote below was going through a very difficult time at the time. He has since died of cancer, but at the time he wrote:

You see, I’ve been trained my whole life to think like a pietistic Calvinist. There had to be a REASON for all of this. There has to be a LESSON. I get to ask WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO LEARN? So picture me spending all kinds of mental energy trying to find what was the great lesson at the core of all of this that, when I learned it, would make it all go away.

Riiiiight.

And when I ask what all this means and what I am supposed to learn, Jesus just asks questions back, or says things like “Why don’t you go down that road and see what happens. You’ll never know if you just pout.” Or “Just obey me tomorrow and we’ll find out.”

There doesn’t seem to be some resounding THEME or amazing LESSON. As Greg Boyd says, from my point of view, it just all seems to be hitting the fan. God BRINGS good out of it, but if I want to say that he caused it all (which I still do for lack of any other way to express faith and confusion simultaneously) with some CERTAIN LESSON in mind, I don’t get very far. Like he said, “Go down the road, and you’ll see what’s there.” Kind of God’s version of “When we get there, you’ll know.”

The quote above reminds me of the writings of the Prophet Habakkuk. The prophet starts out by asking God a series of questions:

How long, LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.

That is, the Prophet Habakkuk wants reasons. Why this and not that? Why this way and not another? Like yesterday’s post, Habakkuk wants the knowledge of good and evil. That is, though he is not omniscient, he wishes to be omniscient, he wishes to know the reasons for why everything is happening the way in which it is happening. In this case, God decides to give Habakkuk an answer. At that point, Habakkuk wishes he had never asked the question! What is God’s answer to Habakkuk? Simple, God goes ahead and reveals part of his plan for Israel’s future, to teach them the ways of righteousness and to deal justly with Israel’s injustice. So what is this plan?

He tells Habakkuk that he is raising up the Babylonians so that they may sweep in and destroy every nation in their path. Habakkuk recoils and asks God in a very diplomatic way how can this make any sense at all? He then uses a tactic that believers have used throughout the ages. He quotes Scripture back to God to try to show God that God cannot do what God has just said that he is going to do. Basically he asks God how a righteous God can use a people who worship false gods and who engage in some sick war practices (they used to impale their prisoners and put hooks through their jaws, etc.). After all is not God too holy to look upon such sin?

God does not defend himself. Rather, he simply answers that when the time comes, Babylon also will be punished with destruction because their behavior and their worship of false gods. In other words, he says that he has some long-term plans in place to deal with the whole matter. But, the reality is that during the fulfillment of those long-term plans, an entire generation of Israelites went through some significant suffering, exile, and dispersion. Eventually the Persians come and overthrow Babylon. Under Cyrus, they allow the Jews to return and reopen the Temple (read Ezra/Nehemiah). So, what is Habakkuk’s response to all this? It is actually in the form of some rather famous verses:

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

La Santa Teresa de Ávila wrote it this way:

Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you
Everything passes
God never changes
Patience obtains all
Whoever has God wants for nothing
God alone is enough.