Calamity, Meet Jane

There was a season when I had been praying about a situation and some relationships in my life.

Eventually, circumstances changed. The situation was removed from my immediate life, and in my mind, I thought:

Thank You, Lord. That’s handled.

Except sometime later, circumstances started shifting again.

Suddenly, the very thing I thought God had removed looked like it was coming right back.

Babycakes, I prayed.

And I don’t mean one of those pretty little prayers where you’re completely surrendered and end it with Your will be done.

No.

I had apparently already determined what God’s will needed to be and was simply waiting on Him to agree with me.

God, why are You allowing this? I already prayed about this. You already removed it. Please don’t let this happen again.

I even had my reasons.

Three of them, actually.

Very good reasons, if you would’ve asked me.

And then…

God let it happen anyway.

I remember thinking, God, this cannot be happening.

Except here’s what I couldn’t see then:

The disaster I had already played out in my head never came.

One of the situations I was particularly afraid of did happen.

And you know what?

It was…fine.

Not perfect. Not what I would’ve chosen. But nowhere near the catastrophe I had convinced myself it would be.

Turns out, I had spent a whole lot of time fearing not only what might happen—but everything I assumed would come after it.

Eventually, that season ended. Except this time, we walked away knowing things we hadn’t known before.

Relationships became clearer. We learned things that helped us make wiser decisions. Things were revealed through ordinary circumstances that we probably couldn’t have seen from a distance.

I had been asking:

God, why are You letting this happen?

Meanwhile, God could see what I couldn’t.

I thought His protection had to look like preventing the situation altogether.

Maybe sometimes His protection looks like allowing us to walk through something long enough to see clearly.

And boy, do I struggle with that.

I’d much rather God hand me the itinerary:

Here’s what’s happening. Here’s why. Here’s what you’re going to learn. Here’s how long it’ll last. And here’s confirmation nobody’s life is about to implode.

Thank You, Lord. I’ll see You Tuesday. 😂

And That Brings Me to Habakkuk

Because apparently asking God,

“Excuse me, Lord…what exactly are You doing?”

isn’t a new phenomenon.

Habakkuk looked around at what was happening among his people and couldn’t understand why God was allowing it.

So he asked Him.

That’s one thing I love about this little book.

Habakkuk clearly believes in God. He’s talking to God, wrestling with God, and waiting for God to answer.

His questions weren’t proof that he didn’t believe.

He believed enough to bring his questions directly to God.

And then God answered.

Except God’s answer probably wasn’t exactly what Habakkuk had penciled into the itinerary either.

God tells him that He is at work:

“Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.” — Habakkuk 1:5

And then God tells him He is raising up the Babylonians.

Habakkuk’s response, in my very unofficial Jane translation:

WAIT. WHAT?! THEM?!

😂

Now he has more questions.

And isn’t that just like us?

We’re convinced that if God would just explain Himself, we’d feel better.

Then sometimes we get a little glimpse and think:

Well, that cleared up absolutely nothing. I actually have several follow-up questions.

My mama used to tell me:

“Curiosity killed the cat, and YOU were the cat.”

Apparently not much has changed.

But God continues answering Habakkuk, and eventually we get to Habakkuk 2:4:

“The righteous shall live by his faith.”

FAITH, people. Faith.

Faith is a whole lot easier to talk about when you already know how the story ends.

It’s harder when you’re standing in the middle of it saying:

God, I don’t understand this.

Why did You allow it?

Why didn’t You stop it?

Why does Your answer to my prayer look suspiciously like the exact thing I asked You not to let happen?

That’s where faith actually has something to do.

Not pretending we understand.

Not refusing to ask questions.

Trusting God when we don’t have all the information.

I tell my son some version of this all the time:

You don’t need to know everything. You need to know what YOU need to do.

You don’t always need to know what Mama is doing, what Daddy is doing, why we made every decision, or what happens five steps from now.

You need to know what you’re responsible for right now.

And excuse me while the Lord turns one of my own parenting speeches right back around on me. 😂

Because maybe I don’t always need the entire itinerary either.

Maybe I need to know what God has asked me to do today—and trust Him with the parts He’s handling that I cannot see.

I Asked for Removal. God Gave Me Revelation.

Looking back at that season, I can see things now that I couldn’t see while I was begging God to prevent it.

The catastrophe I’d imagined never happened.

But things were revealed.

We understood relationships differently.

We gained information we needed before making important decisions.

We saw things clearly that we couldn’t have seen from a distance.

I thought God’s protection needed to look like removal.

Instead, in that particular season, it looked a whole lot more like revelation.

But I want to be careful here.

Sometimes we don’t get that hindsight.

Sometimes we never get to say:

“Ohhhh. That’s why.”

Habakkuk doesn’t end with everything becoming comfortable either.

By chapter 3, he’s describing crops failing, fields producing no food, and livestock disappearing.

And yet:

“Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” — Habakkuk 3:18

That’s the part I don’t want to miss.

The lesson isn’t:

Trust God and eventually He’ll explain Himself to you.

It’s:

Can I trust God even if He doesn’t?

And goodness, that’s harder.

I think it ties right back into what we talked about in Deuteronomy 31:1–8.

We might not know what the next season holds.

We might not understand why we’re walking into it.

We might even be standing there telling God we have three perfectly reasonable reasons why His current plan needs reconsideration. 😂

But He hasn’t left.

He hasn’t forsaken us.

And He can see what we cannot.

So if you’ve ever prayed:

“God, why are You allowing this?”

Go read Habakkuk.

It’s only three chapters, but babycakes, there is a LOT packed into those three chapters.

Bring your questions.

Bring your confusion.

Talk it through with God.

And maybe we can practice this faith thing together:

We don’t have to understand everything God is doing to trust the One doing it.

Let me know what you think, my hunnies. 💗

— Jane