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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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appreciate?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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examples of that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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lot of reflection.

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

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

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

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

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

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that is super encouraging and challenging for me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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kind of arising at just the right time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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in the end.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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back and waiting?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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to get to us.

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Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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you allow this thing at all?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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of God's promises.

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Right.

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

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

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

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

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everlasting. I just love that.

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

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

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I'm wrong.

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

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

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

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life and faith?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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You can call it Twitter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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I did before we kind of went through this together.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

402
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Yeah. Man, I really feel like sometimes we miss sell Christianity as the thing that's

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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week.