Pilgrim Traveller

Close friendship with God involves living with God’s mystery, so we’d better learn how to do that.

Read Habakkuk 2: 1-3

Many Christians today find mystery extremely uncomfortable. They like everything to be neatly tied down, certain and sorted, with no loose ends. They suffer from what a number of contemporary writers call “the sin of certainty” where in order to defend God’s power it becomes necessary to deny the messiness of real life lived in our messed up world, and to deny that God could be at work when things don’t seem to be working out.

Habakkuk sets out three important principles for those who want to build a trusting friendship with our mysterious God.

• Firstly, wait and see (2: 1). Close friendship leads to patient waiting. The 11^th century writer, St Anselm once wrote: “I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand”. Romans 16: 25-26 talks about “This message about Jesus Christ has revealed his plan for you Gentiles, a plan kept secret from the beginning of time.” Clearly Paul believed that God shares the secrets of his mystery.
• The main task of leaders is to grapple with God’s mysteries for the sake of those they lead (2: 2). Often our people can be too busy and distracted to hear God themselves…the last thing they need are busy and distracted leaders. Leaders need to spend much time in prayer and the scriptures, rather than being swamped by admin and meetings. The apostles recognised this in Acts 6: 2-4: “we apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food programme.” They got their God-given priorities right and appointed other leaders who were equipped and gifted by God to do the other tasks. This is one of the reasons that New Testament leadership is always plural.
• Hearing God is one thing, fulfilment of what he says may take time…sometimes a long time. Romans 16: 25-26 talks about the Gospel as “a plan kept secret from the beginning of time”. Many who believed what the prophets foretold didn’t get to see it in their days on earth…but at the right time it happened. Friendship with God is not just about waiting patiently for an answer – sometimes it’s having the faith to wait for a very long time.

What are the questions that you need to be asking God at this time…questions about his character, the things he’s doing or not doing in your world?

Prayerfully make a list, then take time to sit somewhere quiet and begin a conversation (speaking and listening) with God about each question.

Think about this:

John 16:13-14 NLT

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. [14] He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me.