October 16th Devotion

What God Will Do When We Bring Our Pain to Him
By Jennifer Slattery

I will stand at my watch
and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me,
and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Habakkuk 2:1

Have you ever been in that place? Where you’ve launched your complaints, or maybe your questions, at God, and then stood, arms crossed, awaiting His reply?

I’ve been in a funk lately, and while I’ve still been reading my Bible every morning, spending time quieting my soul with praise music, and engaging with God through interactive journaling, the other day I stiff-armed God. I sensed Him drawing my attention to a wound I didn’t want to think about, let alone feel, as God was inviting me to do. And so, I shut Him out, closed my journal, and walked away.

This morning, I picked up my pen to journal, ruminating on a series of relational disappointments that, in many ways, led to my funk, and highlighted the wound God wanted to address. Internally, I thought, “What do you have to say about all this, God?” And He met me in that place. Although He didn’t give me clarity on my immediate concerns, He pointed me to what I most needed in that moment—a reminder of His faithfulness and love.

In Habakkuk’s case, the Lord responded to his “complaint,” which happened to center on the seemingly unrestrained violence and injustice all around him, by assuring him that justice would indeed come and wicked nations, like Babylon, would eventually fall. But that’s not what most strikes me about the interaction between God and Habakkuk. What most encourages me is that the prophet had the courage to lob a complaint at God in the first place—and that God not only allowed this but responded to it.

If you grew up in a critical, authoritarian home where “children were to be seen, not heard” and where you weren’t allowed to express your emotions, let alone your “complaints”, you might expect God to respond the same way. You might, therefore, hide some of your most intense inner wrestling and doubts beneath a forced hallelujah. But while we must always remember God is holy, perfect, and worthy of all praise—whether we understand or agree with His actions, the book of Habakkuk assures me we can also come to Him authentically, unfiltered. I’m certain He’d much rather we do that than allow our doubts and spiritual struggles to distance us from Him.

Here's a beautiful truth I see in numerous places in the Bible, the section we’ve been discussing included. When we bring everything, including our inner gunk, our pain, anger, and disappointments to God, He uses that to open a conversation that, ultimately, leads us to deeper faith and intimacy with Him. He brings us to a place where we can say, like Habakkuk did,

“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, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights (Hab. 3:17-19, NIV).

Here’s what I find significant in his response. Through his conversation with God, Habakkuk learned that life was going to become difficult for him and his countrymen. The land would become desolate. The Babylonians would conquer Judah, plunder their cities and homes, and exile its people. But the prophet reached a place of contentment, not in his circumstances but instead, in His sovereign, soul-fortifying God.

Pause to reflect on the words in verse 19 for a moment. No matter how chaotic and out of control our circumstances seem, our God retains full control. He provides strength to the weary and beaten down, and enables us to walk as swiftly, as nimbly, as a deer that escapes a predator by darting up a steep and rocky mountainside. In other words, He might not remove the threat, or within the timeframe we hope. But when it comes, He will give us the strength to overcome and tread on the heights.

To phrase it another way, when we express the depths of our souls, unfiltered to God, we receive in return what we most need, the Lord Himself. He alone is our Provider, Sustainer, Protector, Healer, and ever-present help in times of trouble. The more we recognize all we have in Him, the more we’re able to say, “Father, it is well with my soul.”