Heard a great message this weekend from my friend Todd Oldham (one of the pastors on staff at LifePoint Church in Albertville AL.) The church is in a series called “Inside My Head” where the pastors have been dealing with emotions that can take us captive.,. most of which have negative connotations; but Todd got to share about happiness… something we all long for. Yet an honest look at happiness has to include the reality that we are not always happy… (for example: I typed in “happiness is fleeting quote” and had over 3 million hits come back…) To teach about happiness in 2020 is even more challenging, with anxiety and depression at all-time highs.
Life is hard! We are either facing troubles or will face troubles… and there have been other times in history when things seemed really bleak. Todd took us back to Habakkuk around 600BC. Habakkuk, a prophet, is talking of how bad things are about to get… no crops… no herds… kind of like grocery stores with empty shelves… they may have even had a toilet paper shortage…
Let me shift gears for a moment. Back when I was coaching, we faced some incredibly talented teams. One, which I have written about before, had around 6 or 7 future D1 basketball players on the roster. They were taller than us, faster than us, and more skilled than us; not a good recipe for success. In fact, when in the locker room I told the players, “We are about to get the crap beat out of us…” At this point some of you will think I sound like a horrible coach, but then I reminded my guys of a few things. First and foremost, I asked “What are you scared of?”, we were playing basketball, not going into a knife fight; we would live to play another day. I then also reminded them that the scoreboard is not the determining factor in success; but that effort and attitude were the important things. I encouraged my guys to make sure the other team had to earn their victory, and thus we would earn some respect. I then told them to have fun, as they would be seeing these guys on TV in the near future. My guys played loose, had fun, and we got the crud kicked out of us! Yet it made us stronger for the next team we would face!
Back to our story from Habakkuk… he admits that he is distressed over the coming troubles, to the point of trembling (3:16.) But then he makes what would seem to be an odd statement:
18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
I think the key to Habakkuk’s moments of happiness, even in the midst of distress, came from a great life lesson he had discovered; one which the Apostle Paul quotes him on in three of his epistles…
Habakkuk 2:4 …the just shall live by faith.
If we go back to Habakkuk 3:17, he states that “though” things are about to get ugly, 19 “the Lord God is my strength…” Faith equals trusting God!
He didn’t sing “Don’t worry be happy” as though life was going to easy; he would have sang “Great is Thy faithfulness” knowing he could trust the ending! (Verses 17-19 truly are a hymn of faith… what God has said is true!)
Because of the faithfulness and sufficiency of Christ we
can know what the future holds… we win! No matter how hard it might be… we keep
playing!
No comments:
Post a Comment