Staying... in Holy Confusion

Oh, Lord!  Where are You?  Why do You hide Yourself? 

Are You still good even when life isn’t good?  Why do You restrain Your power? 

Why should I pour out my heart in supplication, when You are sovereign?  Do my prayers ever change Your heart?  Why do I petition Your throne with no visible results? 

Why do You feel so far away?  Why do You seem absent when I need You the most? 

How can I trust You when You seemingly don’t keep Your promises? 

Around and around my questions churn.  Like rocks in a tumbler, they have actively rolled in my mind at least eighteen hours a day for three months.  But as I probe, the questions collide with answers, creating even more questions. 

Parker Palmer, founder of the Center for Courage & Renewal reflects,  "The deeper our faith, the more we will struggle. Faith is not about the elimination of struggle but the transformation of it."

In my confusion, I refused to give up on God. “All the certainty that I've held couldn't hold me up when the gravity fell.”[1]

I stared at MyChart and took a deep breath before tapping, “MRI: ANKLE RIGHT WO CONTRAST.”

“Foci of osteonecrosis/bone infarcts involving the distal tibia, talar dome.”

My eyes scanned the remainder of the report. Words like “bone signal abnormalities” and “idiopathic aseptic necrosis” made their way through the medical dictionary of my mind, trying to translate them into something I could understand.

I tapped “MRI: ANKLE LEFT WO CONTRAST.” This was the joint that currently caused the most pain.  

Impression number one taunted me like the character Disgust from Disney's Inside Out - her green hair and side-cast eyes whispering doom as her arms crossed tightly across her chest.

“Multiple bone infarcts are noted in the distal tibia and fibula, talus, calcaneus, navicular, throughout the cuneiforms, and cuboid,” Disgust proclaimed.

While holding my phone to review the ankle report, a drilling, burning pain started anew in my hands - like someone was pushing a drill bit through the middle of my hand and up through my wrist.

Having been an AVN Warrior for almost eight years, I am all too well acquainted with AVN pain.  (Avascular Necrosis, sometimes called Osteonecrosis, is the lack of blood supply in the joint leading to bone death.)  While we await confirmation from another MRI, there is no doubt in my mind that this dreaded disease is now firmly in most major joints.  For those counting -   that’s both shoulders, bilateral hips, right and left knees, bilateral ankle/feet, and spine. My jaw and elbows are showing early signs of the disease, but I’m mentally shelving those for now.

I had accepted life in a wheelchair - with extremely limited lower extremity stability. But this? As my shoulders collapsed and my hands failed me, pain came at me like a jet boat, and I watched my independence drift further away.  It was time to come to terms with a new reality - to recognize what had changed and allow my emotions the grace to follow.

New diagnoses, dashed hopes, increased bone pain, silence from heaven, and a never-ending line of questions led me to the edge of the Forest of Uncertainty. It is filled with every ecosystem imaginable: lakes, deserts, rivers, oceans, marshes, frozen tundra, waterfalls, farmland, and mountains. Somewhere within its vast and varied terrain, I hoped to find resolution to my churning explorations. 

The often-walked path led me through the bogs of confusion, past the volcanoes of anger, and into the gardens of lament.  As my quest continued, I ran into others who had hearts full of questions.  I met Job of old, Daniel the prophet, David the king, Peter the disciple, Habakkuk the prophet, and even Jesus of Nazareth. 

Job asked over fifty questions of God.  He hurled inquiry after inquiry at the Creator of all.  “Why did I not perish at birth?”[2]  And the question that plagues me far too often, “Does it please You to oppress me?”[3]

With moral nerve, Daniel challenges, “Open your ears, God, and listen. Open your eyes and take a long look at our ruined city...”[4]  Daniel is asking God if He plans to sit on high unmoved.

David peppers God with dozens of questions in the Psalms.  "How long, O Lord?"[5]  "Why, Lord?"[6]  I mean, think about the audacity of asking the Creator of all, “Ummm, what for?  Why?”  There’s confidence in His relationship with the Lord.  David boldly hurls questions at God, knowing his personal relationship will sustain the season of doubts.  And even more that his God will not belittle or dismiss his questions.  So he honestly queries, "Will You forget me forever?"[7]  "Are Your promises at an end?"[8]

And then, I met Peter of the New Testament.  Peter’s curiosity led him to ask for clarification:  “Explain the parable to us,”[9]  Later, after Jesus explains His soon-occurring departure from earth, Peter cries, “Lord, why can't I follow you now?”[10]  Peter’s questions reveal a heart both starving for truth and yet confused by the same truth. 

Though each fellow traveler’s questions differed, we all shared the same frustrating truth: answers were scarce, slipping away like footprints in the sand.  And so, finding myself in good company, I continued down this path of investigation. 

Along the way, I encountered waterfalls of wonder because despite everything, I was increasingly struck by God's grandeur.  While my questions still loomed large, I was often confronted with awe-inspiring amazement at the power and terrible majesty of my God.  “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!”[11]

Walking on, I even met our Savior, Jesus, in the Forest of Uncertainty.  His penetrating question on the cross echoes still across the world: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”[12]  Yet the Son’s questioning of the Father was not rebellion but rather a show of intimacy.  In a moment of profound agony, Jesus cried out to His Father who had suppressed His power and turned His back on His Son. 

I continued my shared journey of waiting, wrestling, and loyalty - even loyalty in silence. I discovered the depths of faith demonstrated by the greats of the past. But: “faith does not eliminate questions.”[13] As I rounded the bend of deliberation, I encountered “the embracer” called Habakkuk. And in him, I found a reflection of my own unrest.

You see, Habakkuk is thought to have been a liturgical priest with a Levitical background.[14]  The Babylonian Talmud even claims he was the Shunammite woman’s son who was raised to life by Elisha.  But regardless of his pedigree, we can glean much of the power of questioning and the strength of unanswered trust.    

Habakkuk contributed only fifty-six verses to the Canon of Scripture.  But unlike all other biblical prophets that received a message from God, Habakkuk had questions for God.  He opens his account by questioning, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and You will not hear?”[15]  In the remaining fifty-five verses, he asks twelve more questions of God.  He doesn’t hold back as he anguishes over injustice, raises shoulders in a questioning shrug at God's silence, and brings the brokenness of unanswered longing.  He holds this tension up high for all to see – this tension between God’s holiness and the evil of the world.  These three chapters model a faith that questions, but ultimately, a faith that stays.

Habakkuk lived around 620–600 BC, just as Assyria began to fall and Babylon was on the rise.  His conversation with God happened during Jeremiah’s prophesies and his life overlapped Daniel with his den of lions.  The world was filled with brutality at every turn.  Evil seemed to triumph over good with fearful regularity.  And Judah was spiritually and politically bankrupt, ruled by corrupt kings following King Josiah’s death.

Habakkuk questions not just God’s plan, but also the means by which He intends to carry it out.  He goes to God with the quivering voice of one living in the tragic gap between what is and what should be.  He even has the fortitude to question God’s answer! 

And this, my dearest wayfarers, is exactly where I’ve lived for over three months.  Here in the tragic gap of soul-searching ponderings.      

Have you ever found yourself in the company of Habakkuk?  Your life broken, your community in shambles, and your God mute?  That is, if you can even find Him in the chaos?  Have you ever questioned the promises of God – certain that He isn’t fulfilling them in your life?  Have you looked at the ease with which the “wicked” live and wondered how in the world you are considered “blessed.”  Or have you ever spit fireballs heavenward asking, “With friends like you, God, who needs enemies?” 

“Craving clarity, we attempt to eliminate the risk of trusting God. Fear of the unknown path stretching ahead of us destroys childlike trust in the Father’s active goodness and unrestricted love. We often presume that trust will dispel the confusion, illuminate the darkness, vanquish uncertainty, and redeem the times. It doesn’t.”[16]

In the middle of the Forest of Uncertainty, do you have the fortitude to stay with God?  Stay in the doubts?  Stay in the questioning?  Stay in the turmoil? 

Kara Kistner says, “In a culture that prizes productivity and visibility, staying can feel like failure.  But in the Kingdom of God, staying is sacred.  It is an act of trust; a holy stillness.” 

So finally, after a couple rounds of Q&A with God, Habakkuk declares, “I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and I look out to see what He will say to me.”[17]

It takes a courageous faith to stand at a watchpost in anticipation.  It takes faith of steel to tell God you’re gonna stay on the watchpost until He answers.

In chapter two, we see God does indeed answer.  “For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.  They are dreaded and fearsome; their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.[18]  Habakkuk is left aghast at God’s answer!  He questions the wisdom of using such wicked people in His overarching plan for redemption.   “God, are you sure this is the best way to administer justice?  Jehovah, is domination by the Babylonian Empire really the best choice for chastising Your chosen people?  Are You sure, God?”

Just as God’s answer left Habakkuk with more questions, so I, too, found the more I sought truth, the more I discovered that I needed to seek!

We see Habakkuk challenge God.  “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?”[19]  While the verses of Habakkuk don’t really outline his own ideas for restoring the people of Israel, his response indicates a clear uncertainty in God’s plan. 

Yet!

Yet!!

Yet!!!

Habakkuk ends his account by declaring, “O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear.”[20]   He reiterates in his own heart and mind that God’s “splendor covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise.  His brightness was like the light; rays flashed from His hand; and there He veiled His power.”[21]

And then we see the conclusion of the heart in the word "yet." Despite the doubts he still had, the uncertainty that God’s answer didn’t fix, and the fact that an all-powerful God was veiling His power and restraining His mercy, Habakkuk boldly declares, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”[22] 

He continues his response in gentle submission to the will of God even in his confusion and fear.  “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”  Then there’s a subtle shift in tone.  Habakkuk goes on to declare who God is to him personally.  “God, the Lord, is my strength; He makes my feet like the deer’s; He makes me tread on my high places.”[23]

While much can be learned from this short book of prophecy, I firmly believe the key takeaway is that God isn’t just okay with our questions, but He may even welcome them.  “God is not threatened by our doubts. He is big enough to handle our hardest questions and gentle enough to hold us while we ask them.”[24] 

Sarah Clarkson, English author and theology graduate of Oxford University, speaks truth when she says, “To question God is not to doubt Him. It is to seek Him. And seeking is an act of faith.”

It is in our questions that our soul is laid bare before God.  Our curiosity leads us to seek truth.  And in seeking, there is questioning. 

Starting my day with 'Good morning, Lord!' has been my practice since childhood. I would talk to Him throughout the day, telling Him my every thought (often the same thought many times over!). Asking for His help - for myself and others - came as naturally as breathing. But when my physical body began to break down anew, my mental fortitude started to crumble, and my emotional willpower faded - all at the same time - my soul began to deeply question the fundamentals of who God is and whether He could really be trusted. That was when I entered the Forest of Uncertainty.

I can’t say that I have found answers to all my questions.  I can’t declare that I now understand the ways of God.  I’m not sure I’m even out of the Forest of Uncertainty.  But I’ve pitched my tent at the base of a stunning waterfall of wonder.  And I’m gonna camp out here for a while.

While sleep evaded me two nights ago, I finally blurted, “Lord, I don’t understand!  The more I learn the more I question.  And then, I’m not sure that what I understand actually brings me comfort.  But what I do know is that You are holy.  I more fully see Your vast character.  And I’m convinced that You love me regardless of what I feel.  But, more than anything, I’ve confirmed that I need You.  I need continual conversations with You.  I need a persistent relationship.  “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”[25] 

Even if I never understand …

yet will I stay …

at the watch post …

and station myself on the tower …

and look to see …

what He says to me!

[1] “Giving Up” A New Reality, Sarah Kroger

[2] Job 3:11

[3] Job 10:3

[4] Daniel 9:17–19

[5] Psalm 13:1, 35:17, 89:46

[6] Psalm 10:1, 22:1, 42:

[7] Psalm 13:1

[8] Psalm 77:8

[9] Matthew 15:15

[10] John 13:37

[11] Romans 11:33

[12] Matthew 26:40

[13] Elisabeth Elliot in Amy Carmichael, A Chance to Die

[14] Assumed based on Jewish tradition but not Biblically confirmed.

[15] Habakkuk 1:2

[16] Brennan Manning, author of The Ragamuffin Gospel

[17] Habakkuk 2:1

[18] Habakkuk 2:6

[19] Habakkuk 1:13

[20] Habakkuk 3:2

[21] Habakkuk 3:3–16

[22] Habakkuk 3:18

[23] Habakkuk 3:17-19

[24] Attributed to Sarah Bessey

[25] Mark 9:24