Prerequisites
The Bible’s answers to difficult questions is going to ask us as believers to make two commitments. The first commitment is submission to God as authority. In Isaiah 55:8 God says,
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,”.
God is the supreme sovereign over all He has created and when we come along side biblical characters, like Habakkuk, and approach God with big questions we do not want to approach God with malice in mind. We would be wise to recognize that God’s understanding is correct, even if we are tempted to disagree or do not like the answer.
When Ester approached the king to provide important news and ask that her people be saved, she plans and with careful thought recognizes the king’s authority and approaches with the utmost respect to perform her task. Similarly, Nehemiah who is a servant of the king in Susa, has his inquiry planned out in advance and when the opportunity is right, he spells out his plan to the king and asks for blessing and provision. Both characters are self-aware enough to submit to authority prior to asking big questions. In the same way we as believers should be smart enough to move into the throne room recognizing that God is in charge and God gets to define the answers.
We are not asking big questions to receive the answers we want to hear. Rather we are asking big questions to hear what God has to say in response.
The second commitment believers make, is trust in God. We trust that our Sovereign is omnipotent, overseeing the creation and affairs of humanity, and in charge of the source, path, and destination. Like the Hebrews in the wilderness, we are called by God to submit to His centrality in our lives and lean into His provision for the outcome. We literally bring nothing to the table except our call to put God at center and follow His lead, trusting in his character and promises.
It’s all about Him. We overestimate ourselves when we inject the presupposition that we need to understand Him; or try to wedge God’s infinite plan into categories that we can grasp. Scripture calls believers into neither of these tasks. As believers we are neither asked to understand His rationale nor evaluate His reasoning. The overarching call of Scripture is a narrative story of a loving and perfect God redeeming and preserving a people for Himself through the engagement of Himself in the reality He created. Note the lack of requirement that we would understand His reasoning, much less play an interactive role in procuring it.
Indeed, it is after His divine intervention through Christ and the injection of His Spirit into the temple of His people, that we participate at all, and again only by submitting and by faith, following His lead.