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Remember Mercy

         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)

 

God and I are in very different time-streams. Actually, He’s not in a time-stream, and I am. That’s the problem. When I cry out to God to help or say something, as Habakkuk did in today’s verse, I’m looking for an answer in the next thirty seconds, and it would help if there was something dramatic or attention-grabbing about it, so I notice.

On the other hand, in His wisdom, God provided lots of answers two thousand years ago, and may provide an answer six months or two years down the line, when I’ve forgotten the question, but actually need the answer. And, if the truth is known, He’s probably given me the same answer two thousand years ago, and two thousand times since I was born, but I haven’t seen, heard, or understood.

One of the things I’m struggling with at the moment can be described a couple of ways. One way is to say that I’m struggling with spiritual adulting. When babies are unhappy and cry, someone does something to fix the situation. As we become adults, we’re supposed to learn to take responsibility for fixing our own problems. But when I have a problem that I take to God, I want Him to comfort me, burp me, change my diaper, and give me a bottle – or maybe just entertain me. And I want it right now, in real-time. Like Habakkuk, I want God to make His fame and His deeds known in my time, and in wrath remember mercy (because I don’t want anyone to be harmed, I just want the special effects.)

What I don’t want is to spend four hours looking through Bible verses I’ve already read God knows how many times – or at least my eyes have transmitted the images, or my ears have transmitted the sounds to my brain – whether or not my brain actually did anything with them. What I don’t want is to take responsibility (unless I want to,) or blame, but I do want credit. God is too wise, and too smart for that.

At the same time, how could anyone not want to see God being God? The key, I suspect, is our motivation. If we echo Habakkuk for our own entertainment, there’s no reason for God to oblige.  In fact, it might be an occasion for Him to remember mercy If we echo Habakkuk for God’s glory, that’s another matter. 

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