Grace and peace to you through God our Father who has said that the just shall live by faith. Amen.

Father, you know that the world is in constant turmoil like an angry sea. We are helpless against the storms that rage around us. We have no answer for the tumult of trouble. We can’t stop the churning. The waves of fury threaten to sweep us away until we are no more. But you have promised to be our rock of refuge. You have promised to be our safe haven from the storm, our shelter from the wind and strife. You have said, "Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations." You have told us that our strength lies in quietness and trust in you. No matter how many troubles and dangers swirl around us, help us to trust your promise that you are still in control and that you will help and protect us. Amen.

They say there are four seasons in Wisconsin: Fall, Winter, Spring, and Road Construction. Maybe you are like me when you come upon road construction. When I pass a roadwork site, I do a quick census. I look at how many people are really working, and how many are just standing around. Twenty workers out here. Two are supervising, and we know that’s not work. Six are leaning an their shovels, three are talking on cell phones, four are getting a drink of water, one is in the portapotty and two others are in line, one is driving the bulldozer – which looks more like play than work to me – which leaves one guy, one lonely guy, to wield the shovel and move the dirt around. Twenty workers and only one sweaty soul is doing the work! What a rip-off!

Except, of course, that I may not have seen everything. I may not have understood what I thought I saw. I may not know that the shovel-leaners are having their first break in six hours. I may not have understood that the ones talking on the phones are coordinating things with expert knowledge. I may not have seen that the ones getting water were only a few minutes ago teaming together to lift a giant slab of rock. I certainly don’t understand the skill it takes to run that giant bulldozer, and I don’t have a clue what it means to supervise such a complicated operation.

In other words, my smug snarling about their laziness is off base. What my eyes think they see is only part of the truth. The real issue is that I don’t need to be worrying about somebody else being lazy. I just need to get out of the way, and let them do their work as it was designed. I just need to trust them that they know what they are doing, and I need to be on and about what I am supposed to do.

Sometimes it looks like God is lazy. Can’t God see that there is a lot to be done down here? Doesn’t he see how all this evil around us is affecting our lives? Doesn’t he care about all the illnesses, injuries, and infirmities we are dealing with? He doesn’t always seem to answer our prayers. And he doesn’t always seem to be involved. Somehow God must be lazy. God needs to get to work!

Habakkuk the prophet thought that way. He raised a complaint. After all, things were getting desperate. It seems that the godless attitudes and wicked behavior of the Jewish royalty filtered down to lesser officials, and, finally, to the people themselves. There was bloodshed, violence, depravity, and idol worship. The prophet Jeremiah was nearly put to death because of his unfavorable prophecies. The prophet Uriah, was put to death. These were terrible times. Habakkuk felt that God was reneging on his promises to his chosen nation. He felt: "Get busy, Lord! Get to work, God! Lord, how come you are so lazy!"

The way Habakkuk said it was: "How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds." In other words, God, how come you are doing nothing in the face of all of this? How is it that you let me, your prophet, stand out here in the hot sun and yell my head off, and you do nothing useful?

Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever felt like crying out to God, "Just do something, anything, to correct whatever is going on out here?"

Have you ever wanted to ask God, "If you’re in control, why does evil so often win?" An example might be the extremists in Irag who set off car bombs at various Christian churches and killed several people. "Why did you allow this Lord?" "How long will allow the Jihad demons to keep this up and do this to innocent people who love you?"

Or why is it extremist judges can rewrite our standard of morality when it comes to abortion, marriage, the Ten Commandments, having "In God We Trust" on our money and even have the phrase "Under God" challenged in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Or closer to home, you may have heard about the mother and daughter that were duct-taped and murdered in their home here in Racine. Why would God allow this to happen?

Or more personal, I’ve spent a lot of time in the hospital visiting people this week. Why is Louis Mico, Mary Ann’s husband, struggling with emphysema that he contracted by being a good worker in a factory? Why is it that Don Petersen feels that every Tuesday he is back in the hospital? Why did God allow Rhoda Trautman to fall and hurt her hip? Can’t God do something about all this? Where is he? Is he lazy or sleeping or busy somewhere else? And so, like Habakkuk, we complain. "O Lord, how long shall I cry for help in the face of evil, and you will not listen?"

But you remember my story about the road crew? Sometimes we don’t see the whole picture. We don’t see all that goes into getting a job done. The truth is that God is always at work. God is at work, according to His purposes, not ours, and He is always at work, bringing order out of chaos. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28) God is always at work, but we don’t see Him working because He uses methods that we don’t understand. "The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom." (Isaiah 40:28) God works in His own way, and we rush by, like drivers on that road, unable to see the whole picture, unable to discern God’s methods.

God answered Habakkuk. God told him that there was a whole lot more going on than Habakkuk could see. The Lord said, "You aren’t going to believe this, but I am going to discipline Judah and straighten them out. The tools that I am leaning on are the Babylonians, that violent and bloodthirsty nation. They are my rod of correction. Don’t tell me I’m not doing anything. I am doing something. It’s just that you don’t understand my methods. You don’t understand my tools." God is always at work and God works by using tools we don’t always appreciate.

The other day I was flipping through the channels on my TV. I stopped to watch a painter skillfully painting a desert landscape. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the artist? He has dark, bushy hair and a beard. And he always adds "happy little trees" to his paintings. This artist proceeded to color the canvas in deep browns, reds, and yellows. The painting really started to look good. I felt that the artist should stop. To me, the picture looked complete. As I was thinking that, I cringed to see the artist add a dark blackish color of paint to the canvas. As I had feared, the dark blob looked awkward and out of place. But as the artist continued to add texture and other colors to the blob it began to take shape. When the artist was finished, the part of the picture that I had thought was ruined looked great. It was exactly what the painting needed to make it beautiful and complete. It had become a masterpiece!

As I sat there watching the program, I was really surprised to find myself cringing at many of the moves the artist made with his brush. I got to thinking how typical this is of my Christian life. Many times in my life, after much struggling and hardship, I have come to a place where I am comfortable. As I am basking in the goodness of the Lord, God has chosen to institute a change I neither expected nor wanted. During this time I cry out, "No, Lord, You are ruining the picture!" But often, as I allowed God to continue His work on the canvas of my life, to my surprise the picture would begin to look pretty good. Finally, I would thank Him for the addition or subtraction to my life. There have been times, however, that the change never looked good to me and perhaps never will. During these times I must remember that God is still painting. The picture has not yet been completed. I must travel on in faith knowing that when I see Him face to face, my painting will be beautiful. In the meantime, I can take comfort knowing that every situation, though it may be ugly and bad, is paint that the Master Craftsman can use for good. He is working on a masterpiece!

Habakkuk had complained and demanded an answer from God. An answer came, but it wasn’t the answer to what had been asked. It was a word from the Lord that went to the root of his problem. It separated the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the evil, and pointed the way forward to eternal values –"The righteous will live by his faith" or as the apostle Paul translated in writing to the Romans, "The just shall live by faith" (1:17).

God’s answer to life’s problems don’t come in the form of neatly pre-packaged solutions, like strips of shrink-wrapped capsules labeled for each anxiety we have – health, wealth and happiness. Like Habakkuk we can only stand, watch and wait, having the faith that God is at work. We just need to get out of his way and trust in him.

We must never forget that He, after all, is God. He is accountable to no one. He is not a genie who pops out of the bottle to satisfy our whims. He is not our servant. We are His. Sometimes He performs mighty miracles on our behalf. Sometimes He chooses to explain His action in our lives. But at other times when nothing makes sense – when what we are going through is 'not fair' – He simply says, "I am God. Trust Me!"

That's what He said to Job after Job's lament over why he had so many problems and asking where God was during all this. Finally, after patiently listening to all of Job’s whining and complaining and charging God with inaction, God said, "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?" (Job 38:2-7) The Bible records two full chapters of God telling Job that he had no right to question the Almighty Creator. And then God finishes, "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!" (Job 40:2) In other words, "Job, you don't know anything. Who are you to question me?!"

Who are we to question God? We are insignificant, puny, weak-minded simpletons. God is … God. He knows what he is doing. He’s been doing it for a lot longer than we’ve been around. He’s done a pretty good job so far – a perfect job – of running the universe. We need to trust his promises that he is going to continue to watch over us and care for us.

Dr. James Dobson said in one of his books, "The greatest frustration is knowing that God ... could rescue ... could heal ... could save. But why won't He do it? This sense of abandonment is a terrible experience [especially] for someone whose entire being is rooted in the Christian ethic. Satan then whispers, 'He is not there! You are alone!'" Ever felt like that?

Anytime we are tempted to doubt God's love for us, we should always go back to the cross. If God loved me enough to give His Son to die for me when I was His enemy, surely He cannot fail to love me in my times of adversity. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39) Basically, if God loved us enough to give us his Son to win our salvation, then he is going to make sure that he takes care of us in this life so that we can make it home to enjoy that eternal salvation.

So, you see, God is always at work. God does not delight in bringing us pain and heartache. He always has a purpose for the grief He allows into our lives. Most often, we do not know what that purpose is, but it is enough to know that His infinite wisdom and perfect love have determined that it will work out for our eternal benefit. We have God’s promise on that. Amen.

As the apostle Paul reminds us, "I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God [which is your faith]. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." Amen. (2 Timothy 1:6-7)