Minor Prophet Zingers

Day 67 of Reading Through the Bible in 90 Days lands me in the midst of the minor prophets, which is kind of like an off, off, off, way off Broadway play in the Catskills which a handful of people watch while trying to choke down really dry chicken cordon blue. It’s a lot of the same thing, repeated over and over again...Israel is an unfaithful brood of covenant breaking ingrates and their comeuppance is close at hand. But, as I have discovered at least a dozen times during this exercise, even in the dullest, driest parts of scripture, one skims at their own peril, because if you do, you’re likely to miss this:

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,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Habakkuk 3:17-18

Would I really..rejoice and be joyful...if I lost everything? I very much doubt it. So, the conclusion is that maybe my faith in God is basically a transactional relationship...he blesses me with abundance, and I believe and have faith in him. I know it’s not that simple, but the whole Job thing has always given me pause. And now the same idea gets thrown at me by this Habakkuk guy. 

So, I ponder all of this and it occurs to me that when Pam and I were young parents and she had just made the decision to be a stay at home Mom, we were as broke and unstable financially as we have ever been...and yet, I’m not sure that we have ever been as close to God as we were during that time. During a season when every month was a struggle to pay the bills, every week a balancing act, our faith was real and sustaining. 

Maybe what makes this passage from Habakkuk sound so impossible is imagining what it would be like now to lose it all, after a couple decades of plenty? Maybe if you don’t have much to lose having consistent, passionate faith is easier. Maybe this is why you don’t see a lot of religious-themed bumper stickers on Maseratis.

The lesson here? Don’t throw shade on the minor prophets!