Wrestling With God Through Dark Days | Trinity Talks Podcast

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity Talks. My name is Kyla

and I'm the Online Engagement Director here at Trinity. Hi my name is Justin Stratus.

I also attend Trinity Streetsville. My day job is I am a professor of systematic theology

at Wycliffe College and also the academic dean. And my name is Rob and I have the great

pleasure of being the rector here at Trinity Streetsville. Great. So you might know that

in the month of November here at Trinity we've been diving into the book of Habakkuk in a

sermon series that's called The Struggle is Real. And for me this has been a series that's

been full of both challenge and encouragement as we've sort of looked at what does it mean

to ask God some really hard questions? What does it mean to potentially have prayers go

unanswered or to get really hard answers back from God that maybe we don't want? And so

I'm really excited to be sitting down here with Rob and Justin who have helped to preach

our way through this series and just ask, yeah, what are some questions? What are some

things that thoughts that are coming out of this series? So I want to start with you Rob.

So you picked this series, you picked the book of Habakkuk and just wondering why? What

was it about Habakkuk that you wanted to sort of spend some time in?

So it's a good question. I think one thing for sure is that I know that we had just spent

like two months prior to this really focused heavily in the New Testament, right? We have

been doing this series about Jesus and the gospels and all the meals he ate with people.

And so, yeah, so for several weeks we were very much leaning into the New Testament.

And I, of course, I think it's really good that we also spent some time in the Old Testament.

You remember we did a series a little while ago called the Bible for Grownups and we talked

about how the Bible is this library, this big library of scripture full of all these

different books written at different times and different locations and different genres.

But somehow they tell this unified story that points us and leads us to Jesus. And so I

think it's really easy to see how things point us and lead us to Jesus when you're reading

the gospels. But I think it's a good practice for us to really dive into Old Testament books,

to really relocate ourselves in different places and times and yet still say, oh, how

is this pointing us to faith in Christ? So I'd say that was one reason. We just had to

do more New Old Testament stuff a bit. The other reason is I think as a pastor, you get

to know your people and you start to realize, hey, you know what, people are actually struggling

with stuff. You know, like there's, you know, lots of times, you know, people come to my

office or, you know, we visit them in their homes and we hear stories of struggle, whether

it's, you know, health struggles or financial struggles or, you know, relationships. People

are going through a lot. And so I think as a pastor of a church, it's important to be

able to try to help people have the language to, I don't know, to express how they're feeling

to God and to other people and to, yeah. So I think it's just, there's a pastoral side

to this maybe as well. Just, yeah, we need to help people unpack the reality of their

lives, which isn't always fun and rosy. And then the third thing I'll just say is that's

also the case. I think, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on in the world, like

right now. In fact, the week we kicked off this series was the week of the American election

took place and there was a lot of, I think, anxiety in people about what this was going

to mean. Were we heading into dark days again? Maybe, maybe not. You know, there's wars going on.

There's the conflict in the Middle East. There's conflict in Russia and Ukraine. And I think

this book actually just gives us a ton of resources to help unpack all that stuff too.

So yeah, for all those reasons, I thought it was a good choice for where we were right now.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I understand, Justin, that you're a fan of scripture in general,

but Habakkuk in particular. And so just wondering, yeah, what is it about Habakkuk that you really

appreciate?

Yeah, I mean, first I just want to say it's really cool to hear like the story behind

how certain series are picked and stuff and that it's kind of encouraging as someone who

goes to this church to hear the thought that goes into it. And that's great. Yeah, I love

this book. I'm going to pronounce it weirdly and differently. It actually is Habakkuk,

I think in Hebrew, but I say Habakkuk because I'm American and Americans say things the

way they want to. So yeah, about 20 years ago, I was in seminary over 20 years ago and

I was in a class on the minor prophets and I used to study at Denny's, which is a 24

hour diner of impeccable quality. And I used to study there like until the middle of the

night, like three, four in the morning. And I remember I was, I had an assignment on Habakkuk

and I was there all night reading it, thinking about it. I was reading a commentary by a

fellow called Donald Gowan, which is a very short little commentary. It's called the triumph

of faith in Habakkuk. And I just did an all nighter obsessing over this book and this

commentary and it was just blowing my mind. And I still to this day say that that's my

favorite commentary, even though it's not really a proper academic commentary, it's

just a little meditation kind of, but I love it. And it sort of kindled a real excitement

about the minor prophets in particular. And I've just been reading Habakkuk and thinking

about it ever since, particularly the third chapter, which Rob will preach on Sunday about,

you know, though the flower fades and the vine produces no fruit yet, I will praise

the Lord. I mean, after the melee of the earlier chapters of the book to get to that is such

a powerful moment. And in general, I just love the minor prophets. I mean, they're an

intense group of people. They don't pull any punches. They talk about life as it really

is and they do it all in the context of faith. And I think Habakkuk is just one of my favorite

examples of that.

I just wanted to say something. I think it's really interesting. You said you pulled an

all nighter to work through and wrestle through this book. And I think that sometimes we are

told that, oh, the Bible is easy. It's easy to read. It's easy to understand. You know,

just pick it up and go. But I think the book of Habakkuk is a good example of like, you

kind of got to do your homework, right? Even you started off saying the name, right? How

do we even pronounce this, right? Some of these things are not self-evident. And I think

this would be a good challenge to people of faith, even here at Trinity, to say like,

reading the Bible sometimes requires all-nighters. It requires wrestling matches with commentaries

in your hand to figure out what was going on, what is going on. And even last Sunday

when you were preaching, Justin, I think you did a remarkable job of trying to take what

was going on in this ancient context and then what you drew some amazing parallels to our

own context, right? Like, that's hard work though, right?

Yeah. I mean, and the thing about Habakkuk, which is really interesting to me, is that

it's also quite mysterious. There's one reference to the Babylonians or the Chaldeans, as the

text says. So it's not, and Habakkuk's not really mentioned anywhere else. You know,

like in the book of Amos or Hosea, where they sort of appear elsewhere. There's a little

bit of description of their call. Habakkuk is just there. Its historical setting is inferrable,

but it's not really front and center. So it's kind of talking about life. It's kind of talking

about the cycles of reality that we experience as humans in this world, while also being

slightly tethered to a concrete situation. So there's so much you can do with it. It's

kind of inviting you to apply it to other situations and what we're going through, which

is why it's kind of close to wisdom literature, like the Proverbs or the Psalms or Job. It's

a prophecy, but it kind of straddles across lots of different genres. And it invites a

lot of reflection.

Yeah. I've heard some people call it like a mini book of Job.

Yeah, for sure. I think the prophets in general, but I think the minor prophets in particular

are something that we don't necessarily spend a lot of time on. But similar to you, I found

them to be like some of the books that like have bolstered my faith the most. They're

the spaces where people saying really direct things to God and to other people in a way

that is super encouraging and challenging for me.

That's probably one of the reasons why we don't read a lot of the minor prophets. We

actually don't really like what they have to say to us. Sometimes it hurts.

And because they're smaller too, you get, if you read one of the major prophets, Isaiah,

Ezekiel, Jeremiah, there's a lot of devastating stuff in it. Jeremiah is the weeping prophet.

But then you'll get these wrist bites of two whole chapters of like, God, you're so great.

You're going to rescue us. This is awesome. We're going to ride on the wings of eagles.

The minor prophets is just mostly bad, but then you get these sprinkles. Even in the

passage I preached out on Sunday, it's like bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. But then the knowledge

of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. And then it goes

back into bad. So I feel like that kind of reflects what life is like, kind of, right?

It's just all the struggle, the struggle, and then this glimmer of light. And you have

to hold onto that when you go back into the next section.

Yeah. Yeah. So the prophets in general, Habakkuk in particular, have a lot of harsh and direct

words for us. And in particular, God's initial response to Habakkuk's prayer seems kind of

harsh, right? So Rob, in your sermon, you sort of compared it to a teacher who uses

a bully to punish this kid who's like causing a problem, right? And that seems really dramatic

and like really unfair in some sense, like from a human perspective, you're like, well,

why would God, an all loving, all powerful God, do that to people? So if someone's sort

of wrestling through, okay, what does this mean? What would you sort of say there?

Yeah. First of all, I'm not sure that analogy was a really helpful one. I'm not going to

stand by it. It was probably an oversimplification. I'm sure it was a gross oversimplification.

But I think on the one hand, I think we would have to say that being on this side of history,

we can actually see looking back in some kind of retrospective way that, oh, actually God

did in fact know what he was doing. They, of course, couldn't see that. And we, whatever

we're going through, we cannot see that. But I think history bears out that there was a

sovereign plan in place that God was working out. And so I guess, like you just said, for

the person who says this isn't fair, how can I trust God? I would say that, well, actually

we do have the benefit of looking back and saying, okay, actually God did work this out

in a really good way that ultimately, as I said at the beginning, leads to the Messiah

kind of arising at just the right time.

At the beginning of the second chapter of Hapocook, I really latched on to this idea

of perspective. And it begins with Hapocook saying, I'm going to go up and I'm going to

take my watch and I'm going to go climb up to the ramparts and I'm going to look and

I'm going to see. And I just really loved that image of getting above what we can see.

There's a human perspective. When we are going through struggles and difficulties, that's

often all that we can see, right? What's coming right at us. But God has a different perspective,

a higher perspective. My thoughts are not your thoughts, God says. Neither are my ways,

your ways. So I don't know how comforting this is to someone who's actually going through

a struggle, but to say, oh, God sees it differently or God's perspective is perhaps more than,

again, I'm not sure that's a great pastoral answer to someone, but I do believe it. I

do believe that it's true. And I mean, it's the height of arrogance for us to say, well,

if I can't make any sense of this, then it makes no sense. Right? I mean, we're the creature,

right? He is the creator. I mean, I think even just a moment of like lucid thought would

help us to think, okay, yeah, chances are I can't see everything and I don't know everything

that's going on here. So I think there's that. And then I think the last thing I would say

is that you might say, God, how could you let this happen? How could you let this happen?

But ultimately we know that this very thing happened to Jesus himself. Right? God was

not immune from injustice. Right? God was not. Jesus himself was subject to the powers

of a tyrant. And there's that wonderful, I think it's in John chapter 19, where Jesus

John 19 · chapter mention

is in front of Pilate and he says, Pilate says, Oh, don't you know that I have power

to either free you or kill you? And Jesus said, you would have no power actually. And

this is shocking. Had it not been given to you by God himself. So just contemplate this.

God gives Pilate authority over Jesus and ultimately leads to his trial and crucifixion.

So I guess what I'm saying, whatever the reason is that God lets us go through these things,

it's not because he's detached and it's not because he doesn't care. Like that cross shows

us that's not the reason. Right? Jesus was right there in the trenches experiencing this

in the worst way. So yeah, I don't know. There's some thoughts.

Yeah. Wow. That's a great point about Christ. The other thing I think about the themes in

the prophets about God using Babylon or Assyria as God's instrument to punish the Israelites

or the Judeans is I think it's to point out that when calamity happens, you are not entering

a God free zone. Like God is not ceding his authority and sovereignty over the world in

those moments. Right? It's not like he's saying, well, you guys screwed up. I'm just going

to hand you over to these people. Right? God is still overseeing things. And even though

it's painful, you know that the God who is on your side is still arranging matters for

your good as it says in Romans. So even though it's a punishment or sometimes it's just arbitrary

natural evil, like a tornado hits your house, right? It seems chaotic. It seems insane.

But the point of these passages to say that God is still on God's throne. Right? Right.

You can still trust God because it's not like the ultimate power in the universe has been

supplanted and now you need to bow the knee to to bow or Babylon or whatever. God is still

God. And as in so far as God is still God, you can trust that things will be all right

in the end.

Yeah. And related to that is for whatever reason, God seems to have decided that he

is going to use human agents to to work out his plan on earth for good or for bad, whether

it's Adam and Eve, Genesis chapter one, and they screw up. Is that the end? Is God like

done with? No. He, you know, Noah is going to, you know, kind of cleanse things. So he

calls on another human being, another flawed human being to do something. Then he calls

on Abraham, right, as another human being. Like it's like this seems to be like God's

plan is that he is committed to using human beings to accomplish his work and to give

authority to human beings to do that work, you know, whether it's to exercise dominion

over creation or whether it's to be to help Israel become a kingdom of priests or whatever.

Like I'm giving you authority to do these things. The flip side of that coin, though,

is definitely they're going to be held to account for their actions. It's not like it's

a free pass, right? So there is this tension. God says, yes, I'm using humans, flawed humans

to accomplish my plan. But on the other hand, they're going to totally make a mess of it.

And, you know, there's going to have to be some reckoning at some point about that.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. The point you were making, Justin, about like God still being on God's

throne and still being present in that, it reminded me of, I think it's in Jeremiah,

there's this section where, where Jeremiah is like sitting and he actually sees the presence

of God like go with the people into Babylon, which to Jeremiah and to the Israelites, like

probably seemed like a really foreign, strange concept, right? Because God sits in the temple.

And so when the temple is destroyed, obviously God is gone. Right. But, but actually the

presence of the Lord follows them into their struggle. That's amazing. Yeah. So Justin,

last week you were talking about Habakkuk's conversation with God where Habakkuk sort

of asked this question, okay, how long are they going to get away with it? And in response

you said that God's question is perhaps, well, do you have the faith to wait for it? And

that was God's question to Habakkuk. I think it's probably also God's question to us as

we wait out the problem of evil. And so my question then is, so what does that look like

to wait? Is there something that we're supposed to be doing in this time or are we just sitting

back and waiting?

Yes. Okay. I see. I think I see where you're going with this. I don't think waiting is

total quietism. In fact, I think whoever it was did the intercessions on Sunday, prayed

something really nice about, you know, help us to be active waiters and to stand against

evil when it's required and so forth. The nice thing about Christian responses to evil

is that we are to respond to it, but because God is sovereign over the whole, we don't

bear the weight of that drive towards fixing problems on our own. Right. Right. So it's

not like we have to be busy and active and anxious or the world will fall apart. Right.

No, we stand up against injustice in the knowledge that we are participating in a kingdom which

God has promised will actually come to reality eventually. So it's kind of like an unhurried,

restful activity that Christians do. I think it's an activity born out of love for one's

neighbor and for the world and not born out of fear and anxiety, but it all rests on our

shoulders. So all that to say is waiting doesn't mean you just sit back, you know, and it's

kind of like those folks that really got into prophecy in like the 19th century. And the

whole point of studying prophecy and what's going to happen in the future was to basically

when it happens, point at the world and be like, aha, we told you so. See, Christians

don't just sit there and say, I told you so. And things unfold as we expect. We get involved,

right? We get in the muck, but we don't do it in a worried way. But it also is hard.

Of course. Right. That's what faith is. Faith is, is acting on the basis of what God promises

rather than what our eyes can see. And when the world is swirling in chaos around you,

it's a really difficult thing to do. I had a teacher one time in seminary who said, I

think he was talking about Abraham's faith. And he said, what is faith? Well, if you look

at Abraham's life, it just seems to be kind of good old fashioned Christian guts. Like

it's just holding on for dear life, even though it seems ridiculous and things are kind of

crumbling around you. And the promise God gave is just so like ridiculously huge. Like

I'm going to give you bajillions of descendants and the whole world is going to be blessed

through. It just, you can't wrap your mind around it. To believe that you just got a

hold on for dear life. And no matter what life throws at you, that's, it's not passive

waiting. It's, it's, it's waiting with resolve, with grit. That's what faith is.

Yeah. Yeah. I think too that although it's unpleasant and we don't want to hear this,

there are some things that God does in our life that can only happen in times of waiting.

Like the apostle Paul, I think would say that persevering through difficulty and calamity

is how it leads to patience and patience leads to character and character leads to ultimately

to hope. Right. And I think, there's so many saints walking the earth today that would

say like, yeah, I went through a very, very dark time. And looking back, it was also the

time of my life where I grew the most. And again, nobody really wants to hear that in

the midst of the dark time. Well, I'd rather God grow me during times of prosperity and

I'd rather God, you know, really transform my heart and my thinking during times of plenty,

but that's just not how it works. And so there is, I think in times of waiting, an invitation,

a hard invitation, but an invitation to submit to what's happening to you in a way to say,

okay, God, I don't get it, but you're doing something here. And I just, and don't even,

I don't want to miss out on the person you're trying to form me into during this time. Now,

so I think that's also important aspect of waiting. And then I want to add this, like

Tim Keller is the late great Tim Keller. He, he, he, one of the things he said that is

only possible to figure out in the time of waiting is, is to really gauge the reason

why you got into this relationship with God in the first place. Right. This is like the

classic, you know, Job, Job's situation, right? Like, you know, Satan says to God, oh, the

only reason he loves you is because you're good to him. Right. You take away all that

stuff. He's not going to love you or serve you or worship you. Right. And so let's see

what happens, right? Let's see if Job's faith actually was just faith and, you know, he

just loved the stuff God gave him or did he actually really have faith in God and actually

love God for who God was. But you cannot figure that out when, when everything is good. It

just, I don't think there, it's even possible. It's only when things get stripped away from

you that you're actually left with the question, okay, am I still in this because of who God

says God is or, or was it all about the good times and the good stuff? I think that only

happens in waiting. Can I say one, one thing I just want to, when we talk about things

like suffering and God's ability to use it and the dark times being in retrospect, the,

the periods in our lives when we grew the most, I also want to make sure we understand

that evil and suffering is not good in itself. What God does with these dark times is he

redeems them. Right? There's that verse, I think it's in Joel where he's like, when I'm

going to replace the crops that the locusts destroyed. Right? Right. It's not like you'll

look back and realize, actually it was good when I had 10 years of crippling depression.

Right? No, God's going to redeem that time. Right? In your life. Without God, these things

wouldn't be good. Right? Right? Because God can take these ashes and turn them into something

beautiful. So if you're, you know, if you're struggling in a really bad time, you shouldn't

be thinking, well, it's horrible that people are treating me poorly or I'm being bullied

or treated like a doormat, but I'm just going to take it because eventually it's going to

be real to be good. No, what you're, what's getting you through is you're trusting that

God will redeem this one day. He will, he will make something good out of something bad.

Right. But, but that doesn't make the bad good. Sure. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Justin,

can you, that's a really good point. And I wonder, is this also true on a larger scale?

I'm thinking of like CS Lewis who said, you know, pain is God's megaphone to rouse a deaf

world or something like that. Like, what do you, what do you take from that? Again, I

think I would take it in terms of redemption, right? I don't think God is your drill sergeant

being like, I'm going to make this a horrific month of basic training so that you come out

a better soldier. I think it's God saying that we live in a fallen world, right? And

God is going to have to govern this world that's fallen, not because of God, right?

But because of, of sin, he's going to govern it in a way that he can turn it good. Right?

So he can use something that is bad, i.e. pain. Yeah. And something that's irredeemably bad,

right? God is going to destroy pain. If you look at the, the, the visions in revelation

and Isaiah 65, like at the end of all things, God's going to be like, I don't want any more

tears. Right. Right. But God is so sovereign and so loving and powerful and wise that God

can even work through the ministrations of a fallen world to do things like speak to

us clearly in Lewis's terms. Right. That's the power of God. I think like even a fallen

world can't inhibit God's ability to get to us. In fact, God can even use a fallen world

to get to us.

Yeah.

It's definitely a tension because yeah, I just, I do think deep down that if we never

experienced struggle, then I don't know that we would grow in our faith, cling to God all

the more, develop that character. Like, so I, I hear what you're saying. If evil is an

intruder in this, in this world is this is not how it's supposed to be. But then if it

weren't here, I just wonder what would the human being, you know, what would I be like

if, you know, what would you be like, Kyla, if you hadn't had to go through, would you

be the same person? Would you be a stronger person or?

Right. Yeah. And I mean, I think, I wonder if even like our framing of that question

and our way of thinking about that question is itself like somehow a product of the fall.

But like there, there was an original goodness that there was, like, I think Adam and Eve,

pre-fall had a relationship with God and we're in some way probably growing in that relationship

with God. And so I, yeah, I don't want to say that, that it's

that sanctification couldn't have taken place through just fellowship.

Some other means, right? Like, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, this is a fun podcast. I don't

get into much academic theology, but there are theologians who talk about God creating

human beings in a state of imperfection, right? So that the point of life is to drive us forwards

towards a more perfect perfection, not in the sense of like really pristine, but in

the sense of fulfilling our destinies, the reason for which God created us. So historically,

there was a church father by the name of Irenaeus who argued this in one of his books. God creates

us imperfect and then he's got to sort of give us challenges and tasks and that ends

up perfecting us. I guess I would want to distinguish between struggle, things that

require effort and problem solving and challenge from evil because evil, the goal of evil is

to destroy us, right? The goal of Satan and his demons is to destroy us, not to build

us up. Again, I think in the state of the, of the, after the fall, God can even use the

intentions of evil to destroy us for good, right? That's the power of God. But I wouldn't

want to say that, let's say, I don't know, something really horrific happens to you.

You don't want to say like, yeah, God sent that into you because he knew you needed to

learn patience, right? But God can still use that thing to give you patience despite that

thing's intention to destroy you, which is why God is so cool. Yeah, because you can

do stuff like that. But yeah, if you're interested in, you know, soul building theodicy, check

out John Hicks, 1966 book, Evil and the God of Love.

Okay, great. So in this process of walking through suffering and waiting and knowing

that God is going to use that, I think some folks can find encouragement in that. Some

folks, like you said, it's really hard. They don't want to hear that. So for people of

faith, how do we walk through that faithfully? How do we walk through that without developing

the sense of resentment towards God that God, why aren't you here sooner? Or God, why did

you allow this thing at all?

But isn't that in sense what Habakkuk is trying to teach us that it's okay to be resentful

toward God? Like, it's okay to say, this isn't fair, right? You're being a bully, right?

You're not listening. I don't want to talk to you right now. All right? Like, I think

God would rather have us be resentful toward him than to walk away from him altogether.

There's something I think that's okay about it, actually.

Yeah, I would totally agree with that. I mean, the Psalms are a great example, right? There's

Psalms, the famous imprecatory Psalms, Psalm 88, which ends with no happy note. It's just

like the darkness is my only friend, the end, right? It's sort of like the balls in your

court, God. I've given you my complaint. What are you going to do? There is, I think, something

interesting about the way people complain in the Bible because their complaints and

resentments are always kind of based on their faith in God. That's the nature of the complaint.

How long, right? The implication is you will save us. You're just not doing it when we

want you to. Look at the way Moses complains to God at Mount Sinai when the people make

this golden calf while Moses is up there hanging out with the Lord, comes down, sees the calf,

he's super angry, smashes the plates, goes back up to God, and God's like, you know what?

I'm done with these people. I'm going to destroy them. Then Moses has to argue. Here is why

what you're suggesting God is bad. The grounds for Moses's complaint is if you do this, the

world will watch as you renege on your covenant with us that you made. They will laugh at

us and they will laugh at you. That's a harsh thing. I don't usually pray that way like,

God, let me give you three reasons why you should do this thing that I want. But the

grounds for his argument with God is the covenant itself, is the promises of God. You can't

do this because of what you said, God. So it's this weird kind of bold complaint in

your face with God, telling him you're mad, but simultaneously believing God's promise.

It's an interesting space that God's people live in. What grounds would another person

outside the covenant have for complaining about what God does? They kind of can't. But

God's people can and according to scripture are encouraged to complain to God on the basis

of God's promises.

Right.

Yeah. Habakkuk is built around three complaints. And the second one, Lord, are you not from

everlasting? I think that I remember reading that the are you not phrase, most times it

appears in the Bible, it's a resentful kind of accusatory. It's not just, oh, I have a

real question. Are you from everlasting? No, it's actually, oh, I thought you were from

everlasting. I just love that.

So, like, Habakkuk is kind of like a caddy. Oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, I'm sorry. I was under the impression that you were the everlasting God, but obviously

I'm wrong.

So we've talked a lot about sort of some of these concepts and things in a sort of abstract

way. So I want just for a moment to take it back, make it a little more personal and think,

what are you taking away from this series? How has these four weeks impacted your own

life and faith?

Well, I think it's kind of what Rob alluded to earlier. It's a very tumultuous time in

the world. There's things that are going on that greatly distress me that's impacted my

family, my family's mental health, my extended family. And it's very tempting to throw in

the towel. I'm wearing a Yankees hat, right? The Yankees lost the World Series, my beloved

Yankees. And every time that happens, you want to be like, I'm done. I'm done with this

team. But I think Habakkuk's, in a way, being like, keep supporting the Yankees. No, it's

all these things are going on and you just want to give up. And I'm reminded that, and

it's especially these days, it's just wave after wave of bad news. And you think you're

tempted to say God's not big enough to handle all of this, or he's unconcerned with this

world or he's obviously left it behind. And Habakkuk's like, no, keep going. Yet I will

praise him. And that's what I've been thinking about a lot over the past month or two.

Yeah, I think heading into this, for the first time in my life, I think I had gotten sucked

into the social media news reels on X, especially. I'll confess.

You can call it Twitter.

Yeah, I'll just call it Twitter. But I have to admit, every day I was leading up again

to the American election. I'll just give you that example. This was not normal for me.

I normally didn't follow that stuff. I really didn't really care that much about it. But

for some reason, I was getting so caught up in it and feeling invested in it and just

so anxious to see what the outcome was going to be. And I honestly believe that because

we studied this right when the election happened and then there was all these uproars, this

side, this side, whatever, it really did enable me to step back a bit. I really gained a different

perspective on this. I began to look at all this as these players that are clearly people

with power and there's good and there's evil in the world. But somehow God is, God can

do something here. Maybe God is doing something here. Who am I to say God's not doing something

here? It doesn't necessarily change my political leanings one way or the other. But there was

a sense of, I can release that. I would never say we distance ourselves from the need to

give a voice to the voiceless or to call out evil and oppression and to defend the oppressed.

I'm not saying, oh, just wash my hands of all that and just let that happen as it happens.

That's not what I'm suggesting at all. But there was this anxiety that had built up in

me about things. And I can honestly say that I don't feel that nearly to the degree that

I did before we kind of went through this together.

I think for me, one of the things this series has done is just give me space and permission

to process the things with God and with other people and recognize that I'm not alone in

that, both not alone in the present moment, but also not alone in the history of the faith.

That there have been people from thousands of years ago who were praying these same prayers

about different circumstances, but the same prayers that said, yeah, God, this isn't okay.

And you don't need to walk away from that feeling like things have been resolved. You

can just sort of leave it in God's hands.

Yeah. Man, I really feel like sometimes we miss sell Christianity as the thing that's

going to fix stuff or resolve everything. It will eventually, but as Abakak 3 says,

in the meantime, you can't withhold your praise until you see that materialize. I don't know.

I feel like when we evangelize people, we're like, if you become a Christian, all your

problems go away. Your addictions will stop instantly. And no, what we're saying is you

have to, what you're going to have is a promise that you can hold onto now where you didn't

have that before. And now your struggles with sin and suffering and all of the rest take

on a new meaning that they didn't have. It's not just despair. It's struggling to the end

of your resurrection and your redemption. And that's powerful, I think.

Yeah. I think so. Well, thank you very much, folks. This has been a really deep conversation

and lots to think about and unpack, but I think it's also been a really helpful conversation,

definitely for me and hopefully for folks who are listening as well. Yeah. So thank

you for tuning in to this week's episode of Trinity Talks, and we'll see you again next

week.