Does God even care?

“Okay, God… are you really there? Do you even care?”

I saw a complaint of God recently. In my own words it said:

Okay, God, how long am I going to call for help and you ignore me? God, I talk to you about the things You have said You hate, yet You do nothing to save me! I look around and see sin and wickedness, fighting and trouble flourishing. Justice? It never happens!

These kind of complaints are not so uncommon. Would it surprise you to know that this is actually in the Bible? A follower of God, a prophet was asking these questions and making these complaints. Habakkuk was the prophet (1:2-4).

These questions are real. Even people who have been believers for years can hit a trouble spot in their lives and feel God is ignoring them. We can feel that our fervent prayers, which had been effective in the past, are now just bouncing off the ceiling.

Habakkuk was watching the people of God be carried off in captivity and the holy city, where God had put His temple, be completely destroyed. The people who were supposed to be following Him, were perverting justice and it seemed that God was doing nothing to help the good folks that were actually trying.

Have you ever felt like that? You are just waiting… and waiting… AND WAITING… for God to do SOMETHING.

That is what we are dealing with this Sunday in our new God Questions sermon series. “How can you wait and still hold on to hope when the waiting seems to go on and on?”

If this is you, hold on! We are going to talk about that Sunday. I hope you will be there. But in the meantime, you can see where Habakkuk ended (printed below). He made a choice to follow even in the challenges, because He understood God is his strength. God is your strength too! May the Lord draw near to you today!

Habakkuk 3:17-19 (NIV) – ¹⁷  Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, ¹⁸  yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
¹⁹  The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.