God may not agree with view of good, bad guys
JOE MILLER JR.
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-5

Joe Miller Jr. is pastor of First United Methodist Church in Newton.

Do you remember good old time cowboy shows and their heroes? There were Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys; Gene Autry, the singing cowboy; Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, the Long Ranger, The Cisco Kid, Matt Dillon and so on.

One thing about old westerns, it was easy to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys were always clean shaven and neat, the bad guys were ugly and/or dirty, and the plots were simple. Also, the good guys wore white hats, and the bad guys wore black hats.

In the real world, we tend to express many things as polar opposites rather than do the hard work of thinking through issues. For example, look at our political process. The current candidates for president and the news media paint everything to imply, "I am right, and you are wrong."

We wish that discernment was that easy and we lived in a world where it was clear who are the bad guys and who are the good guys. In a complex world it is sometimes difficult to discern the will of God. The real world consists of shades of gray.

The prophet Habakkuk struggled with this issue about 2600 years ago. Like many of the Old Testament prophets he was deeply disturbed over the injustice in his own country of Judah. Unlike some of the prophets he complained to God about God's lack of presence in fixing the problems.

God answers with a vision of coming destruction of Judah by the Chaldeans. Habakkuk then balks and complains to God regarding God's choices. The Chaldeans are much worse than the Judeans!

Although there is a need for judgment on the Judeans, the Chaldeans are "destroying nations without mercy." Who are the bad guys and who are the good guys? Whose side is God on? Then Habakkuk demands an answer from God once again.

The answer is not the one desired by the prophet. God tells him to write down what is going to happen and send it out by runners. At the end of the book, the prophet anguishes over what is going to happen, he laments the loss of crops, and absence of animals; in short, the coming destruction. His last words are very poignant and real: "yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will exult in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights."

I draw several implications from this text: 1) There are biblical precedents for dialoguing and arguing with God; 2) We may see ourselves as the good guys and our enemies as the bad guys, but that may not be God's perception; 3) God is God, and we are not; and 4) When it seems like everything is going against us, God is still our salvation. Email me with your comments at newtonumc@valornet.com.