Awakening

Look, you mockers be amazed and die! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it. – Acts 13:41

With all that is going on in the news these days, between the attacks around the world to the politics here in the US, I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say, “Where is God?” or “Why would God let something like this happen?” or “God must have abandoned us because of our falling away from him.” But, my friends, I fully believe that God is as active as he was yesterday and as he was the day before that.

But these questions still abound. Where is God and why isn’t he doing something. The verse above from Acts was something Paul said in response to those people who mocked and persecuted him and the other early Christians. Here he quoted the book of Habakkuk;

The Lord replied, “Look at the nations and be amazed! Watch and be astounded at what I will do! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.” – Habakkuk 1:5

Habakkuk is an amazing book that I’ve not studied much before and honestly I can’t recall being talked much about, but in my initial reading this morning, I would think it was written about the world today. Here we have a prophet asking questions of God of “Why is there such violence?” God gives him an answer! I plan on doing a deeper study and probably blogging about my findings in the near future as I see so much wisdom in this book and the answers God provides. But that’s for another time.

Awakening

What do I mean by awakening? Well, I think that once we think God is not moving or active in our world, we tend to fall back within ourselves and become resigned that we live in a fallen world. However discouraging the world may seem or how absent God may feel, John Piper said it best,

God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of 3 of them.

I’ve just began reading Awakening by Matt Brown which gives us insight and reminders of how God is working each and every day in this world, despite our not seeing it. We find ourselves in situations each day that we don’t understand why God allowed it or how God will use it for his Glory, yet we don’t see the big picture like God does. Remember Paul spent time in prison unjustly, yet God was advancing the gospel among the guards and making Paul’s brothers in Christ bold in their freedom and in Paul’s strength.

Be awakened by how God is moving in the seen and unseen. As Matt Brown says on his site, “…open our spiritual eyes to what God is doing, which will in turn catapult your faith to all God has purposed for you.”