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When He Rolls Up His Sleeves


 Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.
Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known;
    in wrath remember mercy. 
(Habakkuk 3:2)

          The list of those with whom I struggle to have patience is too long One of those listed is the person who says, “If God would clearly reveal Himself to me just once in a way that made me recognize that I was seeing God, then I would never doubt.” But not everyone who says, “Show Yourself” is lying to themselves, to the rest of us, or to God. 
          There’s not much known about Habakkuk, but from what he tells us, things in his country were in bad shape. Not only that, but there was a pagan king with his eye on Jerusalem. Habakkuk laments this, and like many people when times are rough, calls out to God to step in and fix things. 
          He looks back at the history of the nation of Israel from the day the nation was born and longs for God to step in like He stepped in when the Pharaohs were mistreating them. Habakkuk longs for God to bring an end to the evil committed by his people, but he’s worried about another “pharaoh.” 
          As I look at our society, at the godless people who don’t hesitate to claim power for themselves and who make it clear that when they have it, the people of God will have no safe haven, I am Habakkuk. As I listen to gaslighters, who declare to be true what clearly is not, and demand the authority to impose their preferred truths on others, I am Habakkuk. I suspect you are, too. 
          I admit, there’s probably some selfishness in it. I don’t think I am as interested in what is right as I should be. It’s not that I want justice done, though that would be a welcome consequence. But I’ve heard of His fame. It would be wonderful and terrible if He repeated the things that made Him famous in our day. I’d watch, probably between my fingers. I’m a little jealous. I’d like to see God roll up his sleeves,… with thunder in His footsteps and lightning in His fists, to paraphrase Rich Mullins. Our God is an awesome god. 
          But, as Habakkuk cries out, “Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.” I want to see, but I don’t take pleasure in the harm. That’s one of the things I think is so cool about the plagues on Egypt. The first four: blood, frogs, gnats and lice, flies, and the ninth, darkness; a full half of the plagues, were inconveniences. God showed the worthlessness of the Egyptians’ gods, but they didn’t harm the Egyptians. That’s what I long to see, judgment that remembers mercy.

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