I’ve stopped myself more times than I can count saying, “I should know this.” There’s a part of Christianity that tells us we should have all the answers. We know that God is good, sovereign, loves us, and has a plan. But we still find ourselves staring at a problem thinking: “Okay, then explain this.”
Your question doesn’t come from a heart that is angry or wants to rebel; it usually comes from genuine confusion.
I’ve prayed prayers that were reasonable. I’ve done what I believed God was asking me to do. Yet, the relationship ended anyway. The opportunity vanished. I watched other people receive the thing I prayed about for years.
And in all of that, I stared at a door I was certain God had opened.
No one feels the pressure to have all the answers quite like a pastor.
In the beginning of my ministry, I remember walking into an interview and thinking, “I’ve got this in the bag.”
I was so excited to move toward the calling that was growing in me from a young age. I just knew this was it. The beginning of serving in a pastoral role at my church.
Everything seemed like it was stacked in my favor. I had been with the organization for over 10 years and knew absolutely everyone. I was on the leadership team for the biggest department of the church. I continued to develop under their leadership and my calling was confirmed on numerous occasions. They even saw it before I did.
I walked away thinking everything went well. Beyond excited to start this journey.
Then about a week later, I was made aware that I didn’t get the job. I still don’t know why. They never told me.
Sometimes the hardest part of faith isn’t believing that God exists. It’s believing God knows what He’s doing when we don’t.
Habakkuk Had Questions Too
Habakkuk was a prophet in Judah. Associated with King Josiah were reforms and revival among the people. Then he watched as Judah moved back toward corruption and rebellion. It wasn’t just a theory; it was reality. Habakkuk watched things get better and then become worse again.
Habakkuk starts with the prophet crying out to God and there’s a part of his plea that resonates with me:
“O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2a)
Notice what’s not happening here.
He’s not walking away. He talks to God about God.
Sometimes confusion hurts more because we remember when things looked hopeful.
Over the last 25 years, I’ve been privy to some great and horrendous decisions by leadership. Some had lasting consequences that still show up today in the people that were affected. In many of those situations, I had no control or ability to steer the organization away from disaster.
In those moments, I remember asking the Lord, “Do you see what’s happening here?”
Have you ever prayed that prayer?
I’ve noticed that people aren’t always asking God for a miracle. Sometimes they’re just asking Him to make the story make sense.
Sometimes God’s Answer Creates More Questions
God answers Habakkuk:
“Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.” (Habakkuk 1:5)
Essentially, he’s saying, “I see it. I’m already doing something.”
That’s wonderful, but God’s plan involved the Babylonians. The challenge with that is that Habakkuk wanted God to deal with Judah’s wickedness. He did not expect God to use someone even worse to accomplish it.
Habakkuk had a second problem that was almost like trying to treat a disease with a disease. He objects to what God is doing by changing his question from “Why aren’t you acting?” to “Why would you act like that?”
Sometimes we ask the Lord to please do something, then something happens, and we say, “Not THAT.”
I’m the type of person that knows my place in my family is to provide. That often means that I’m making the sacrifices that are needed to ensure that my family has what it needs to thrive. In the past, that has meant working two, sometimes three jobs at a time, to make sure that we had what we needed.
Not all of the jobs were ministry-related. Sometimes I would work just to put dinner on the table while pursuing ministry.
I’ve gone through seasons where I could see the writing on the wall, and I was desperate to find a different job. If you’ve ever tried to apply for a job, you know what it’s like to experience lots of front doors but no callbacks. One of the hardest parts about doing interviews, at least in my experience, is to keep showing up when it seems like you’re being rejected constantly.
There have been a few times where I did not particularly appreciate the opportunities that were in front of me. Not that I wasn’t capable of doing, or even willing to do, the jobs.
What I can tell you is that God’s methods sometimes remain mysterious, even when His character does not.
We often say we want God’s will until His will takes a road we would never have chosen.
God Does Not Shame Habakkuk for Asking
Habakkuk does something that many of us are afraid to do: he pushes back. He asks how God’s holiness fits with what God had just revealed. Then he does something significant: he waits.
I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint. (Habakkuk 2:1)
As I read this, it’s interesting to me that Habakkuk is expecting an answer but also seems willing to be corrected. It also seems like he isn’t demanding that God admit that he’s wrong. It sounds like he recognizes that perhaps his understanding is incomplete, and that’s a very different kind of doubt.
He’s not saying that God owes him an explanation, but he’s saying that he doesn’t understand, and he’s asking the Lord to teach him what he’s missing.
If you’re anything like me, you often feel guilty for questioning God. Maybe you were taught that mature Christians never ask why. But Scripture contains an awful lot of people asking why. You have David, Jeremiah, Job, Habakkuk. Even the Psalms are repeatedly giving words to confusion and lament.
I’ve had people meet with me, and they immediately apologize before admitting that they were angry or confused with God. What’s interesting about that is there is a distinct difference between someone questioning God and someone rejecting God. It’s the difference between saying, “I don’t understand you; therefore, how could I follow you?” and “I know you know what’s best for me, but I don’t understand, so please help me fill in the blanks.”
You need to remember that God is not threatened by your questions. In fact, your questions will keep bringing you back to God, and that’s the point.
You Are Allowed to Admit That You Don't Know
Here’s a verse from Isaiah that can help us:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8–9)
Isaiah isn’t saying God is irrational or unknowable. What he is saying is that God’s thoughts and ways transcend ours. We can genuinely know Him without ever possessing his perspective completely. The distance is meant to produce humility as we seek him, not discourage us from seeking him.
It’s important to understand that our maturity as believers isn’t in having an explanation for everything. In fact, sometimes maturity sounds like saying, “I don’t know,” and then, “But here’s what I do know.”
There have been plenty of times where someone has come into my office and told me about their situation, and I sit back and think, “Well, that’s a new one.” Sometimes that person needs a detailed explanation. Sometimes they just need someone to listen and point them back to Christ.
Remember, faith isn’t pretending you understand. Faith is knowing where to stand when you don’t.
“Lean Not on Your Own Understanding” Doesn't Mean Stop Thinking
The book of Proverbs gives us a great image to understand this truth.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5–6)
The image behind “trust” carries the idea of placing your weight upon something, and “lean not” means refusing to make your own understanding the support structure holding everything up.
It doesn’t mean you should stop thinking, asking, or investigating, or that you should ignore reality. It means that your ability to understand everything cannot be the prerequisite for trusting God.
What we don’t want to do is limit our trust in God to times when His reasoning passes our inspection.
I was recently at a conference and, on my way back, sitting on the airplane during our descent, I felt the plane move to the right when we should have been going straight to the runway. I had no idea why the plane was turning. From my vantage point, I couldn’t tell you why that was happening. I just had to trust that the pilot knew what he was doing.
If understanding everything were required before trusting God, none of us would ever take the first step.
Habakkuk Never Gets the Kind of Answer We Usually Want
As you read through chapter 2 of Habakkuk, you see that Habakkuk gets revelation from God, but God doesn’t give him a neat explanation of every detail. God tells him what he’s doing and assures him that Babylon will eventually answer for its wickedness too.
“the righteous shall live by his faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4b)
God tells Habakkuk that the vision has an appointed time. It will happen, but Habakkuk must live faithfully before he sees everything resolved. You see, God doesn’t satisfy every curiosity. He gives Habakkuk enough revelation to keep walking.
We often want God to explain everything. We want to understand what’s happening before we trust, but Habakkuk shows us that God’s character allows us to trust Him, and then we can continue in obedience while understanding remains incomplete.
It’s not exactly blind faith. Habakkuk has reasons to trust God, but he simply doesn’t have all the information.
God may not give you enough information to explain everything. He will give you enough of Himself to keep going.
The Circumstances Haven't Changed. Habakkuk Has.
Once you get to the end of chapter 3, you see the line about the fig tree not blossoming. It’s important to remember that Babylon is still coming. Judgment hasn’t disappeared for them, but the scary thing God described earlier hasn’t been canceled. Habakkuk even says his body trembles at what is coming, and yet:
“Yet I will rejoice in the LORD.” (Habakkuk 3:18a)
When you see that, you might think Habakkuk has gone crazy and he’s not thinking in terms of reality. But the opposite is true. He isn’t ignoring reality. The fields are empty; the livestock are gone. The threat is real. His confidence has shifted from circumstances to God’s unchanging nature.
He goes from “I don’t understand God” to “I know God well enough to trust him even where I still don’t understand him.”
There have been plenty of times in ministry where I have asked out loud, “Why am I still here? What plan do you have for me in this season?” I’ll be honest, I don’t always understand it, but I know that God has a plan.
Because I know that God rewards faithfulness, I’m going to keep showing up even when I don’t know what tomorrow will bring or what this season has in store for me. I know that God is there, and I know that He will sustain me through every hill and valley.
You see, Habakkuk didn’t leave the conversation with all the answers. He left knowing where to put his weight.
What Do You Do When You Don't Understand God?
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Stay at the Watchtower
Habakkuk was standing at the watchtower waiting. He doesn’t know everything. He doesn’t particularly like what he does know, but he stays. He listens, he waits, and eventually the man who began the book asking, “God, what are you doing?” ends it saying, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”
He doesn’t rejoice because everything became understandable. He rejoices because somewhere between chapters 1 and 3, understanding stopped being the thing holding up his faith.
Maybe that’s where you are right now: you don’t understand the diagnosis, the closed door, why the prayer still hasn’t been answered, why God chose this road. You don’t have to pretend that you do understand. Stay at the watchtower, keep talking to him, keep listening, keep putting your weight on what you already know about his character.
Remember, you can trust God before you understand God.
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Really needed this. Thank you so much. Truly.
I needed this today! I just sat outside on my swing and cried to God that I don't understand where He's leading me. And then I read this post. I still don't understand where we're going but that's ok. I just have to trust Him.