Changing my perspective.
The LORD my Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like those of a deer
and enables me to walk on mountain heights!
Habakkuk 3:19 (CSB)
School has just ended for the year, and I've found myself battling with frustration and irritation about the whole situation we're in for the last few weeks. No one could have anticipated the year ending the way it did. The worries and fears for our students and families, let alone our own, are staggering. We end the year wondering what the next year will look like – more distance learning, normalcy, or some hybrid of distance learning and on-site learning.
Inequities became glaringly apparent in our efforts to provide distance learning to all students while trying to meet all their educational needs and requirements. Physical and social-emotional needs quickly outstripped academic needs, revealing discrepancies in available resources and the ability to even access available resources.
As time goes on and more problems and injustices are unearthed, I have found my fear and uncertainty growing. I have fought sleep for weeks as night time seems to be the best time for my anxiety to take hold; I can’t run from it then. I have filled my prayers with worries and fears as I struggle to release them over to the God who sees and hears all.
I forget the sovereignty of God.
In the book of Job, we encounter a devoutly faithful man who lost everything he had – family, wealth, health, everything. The book is mostly a conversation between Job and his friends about his suffering and why it's happening. Finally, towards the end of the book, God breaks in, but rather than telling Job why, He asks Job a series of rhetorical questions starting with, "Where were you when I established the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? What supports its foundations? Or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4-7).
I can answer that first question: I wasn't there, neither was Job, and neither were any of us. God's questions to Job reminded him, and also us, that there is so much more to God and His perspective than we can even conceive.
The prophet Isaiah words it nicely when he records God saying, “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.’ This is the LORD’s declaration. ‘For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Well, there goes my comfortable belief that I know it all. Yet it is replaced by the more solid belief that God knows what is going on in our lives and world. He knows, and He has a plan. God's plans always work out better than any I could ever concoct. However, I notice that God's plans tend to require a lot of faith and patience. I would much rather be a part of whatever He is planning though, rather than trying to accomplish everything in my strength and with my limited perspective.
I have to stop and wonder sometimes, how does God see the situation (whatever it might be)? What does He know that I'm missing? I am quickly humbled by the fact that I know far less of any given situation I am in than God does, which leads to me praying for God's guidance and wisdom.
Habakkuk is another prophet in the Old Testament, who understood what it meant to ask hard questions because he couldn't see what God saw. His book, rather than delivering a message to God's people, is instead a record of his prayers to God and God's responses to him. The final chapter of this short book begins with Habbakuk saying, “LORD, I have heard the report about you; LORD, I stand in awe of your deeds. Revive your work in these years; make it known in these years. In your wrath remember mercy!” (3:2). I make Habakkuk’s prayer my own, “O Lord, revive your work in these years; make it known in these years.” I am desperate to see a clear way forward, and only God can make that happen.
After Habakkuk expresses his questions, he comes to the understanding that he must have faith and wait, trusting in who he knows God to be. He ends the book saying,
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there is no fruit on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though the flocks disappear from the pen
and there are no herds in the stalls,
yet I will celebrate in the LORD;
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!
The LORD my Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like those of a deer
and enables me to walk on mountain heights!” (Hab 3:17-19)
Habakkuk praises God in the uncertainty and in the hard times. He rejoices because He trusts in God’s sovereignty, goodness, and power. Habakkuk remains faithful despite the hardship and suffering he and his people were experiencing. His strength and security lie not in his understanding of his situation or in a lack of hardship; instead, he finds strength and security in God alone. I love the final image of these verses of a deer walking on the mountain heights. This deer would have to be sure-footed and secure to manage such a feat.
There is no escaping hardship and struggle and turmoil in this life. We live in a fallen world, and we ourselves are a fallen people. However, we do not need to remain doubt-filled and fearful. Thank God for His endless mercy and grace as He redeems us and makes us new. We can ask our questions like Job and Habakkuk, but then we can proclaim God’s goodness. We can trust that He will be our strength and security, even if our world appears to be falling apart at the seams.
