If you do not already live outside the city, you should take a drive outside the city at night and look up. When you get away from the city lights into the dark of the country and you can see many more stars in the heavens than you will ever see in the city. If you were to take a telescope and point it to the heavens it will bring those stars closer to you and you can catch a greater glimpse of God’s creation. But if you don’t know what the telescope is doing, you can use it backwards and the stars are pushed further away. When we face crisis and suffering, there is always the opportunity to be focused so much on the problem that we aren’t seeing the eternal perspective of God’s providential hand. Just as using the telescope backwards, God feels further away rather than closer.
Asaph’s Situation (Psalm 73)
In Psalm 73, Asaph complains to the Lord about the prosperity of the wicked and then he lets God interpret the situation and sees how God is working all things out. Asaph complains, or laments to the Lord about the culture in which he lives being wicked and arrogant and yet they are successful and prosperous (Psalm 73:3-12) but Asaph himself is striving to live according to the laws of the Lord, and he is stricken and rebuked every morning (Psalm 73:13-15). As he faces this dilemma, he is weary in trying to understand. But when he enters the temple (Psalm 73:16-17), the Lord shows him that the end of the wicked is certain. They will fall to ruin, they will be destroyed and swept away (Psalm 73:18-20).
As he understands this, he examines himself and his behavior and calls himself brutish, embittered, ignorant, and like a beast toward the Lord (Psalm 73:21-22). He sees that when he interpreted the situation, he was lacking the right eternal perspective, like looking the wrong way through the telescope. His understanding was faulty, and he needed God to interpret it for him. William Cowper (1774) in his famous hymn, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” writes about this:
Blind unbelief is sure to err / and scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter / and He will make it plain.
We, like Asaph, scan the Lord’s work in vain when we attempt to understand it in our own power and we must allow the Lord through his word, to interpret the situation himself. He is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain.
Habakkuk’s Situation
The minor prophet Habakkuk was one who also went to the Lord in lament over his situation and hears from the Lord that the situation is going to get worse before it gets better. The Israelites would be conquered by the pagan, ruthless, godless Chaldeans. King Nebuchadnezzar would come and take them into captivity. Through Habakkuk’s dialogue with the Lord, we see in Habakkuk 2:4 the work of the Lord to reveal and separate the prideful wicked from the righteous faithful. “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.” Habakkuk 2:4 (ESV)
Through the suffering that was coming, with Israel going into captivity to the Chaldeans, God was revealing that the faithful followers of him would keep their eyes on him and live according to his ways in the suffering ahead. As God interprets the situation for Habakkuk, Habakkuk sees the end of the Chaldeans would come (Habakkuk 2:6-20), he remembers the works of the Lord (Habakkuk 3:1-15), and he writes a song of hope that the Israelites would take into captivity with them for them to keep their eyes on the one who would save them (Habakkuk 3:17-19).
God Wants to Change You
In both situations, Asaph and Habakkuk, there is no initial change to the situation itself. But God changes Asaph and Habakkuk amid the situation. Both men allow God to interpret the situation and are moved to trust and praise the one who is their Rock, their Refuge, and their Savior.
Asaph prayed that he knew God was with him, that God would lead him with his counsel, that he would hold his hand, and that he did not desire anyone or anything but God. He acknowledges that his heart and his flesh may fail, but God is his portion forever (Psalm 73:23-26). Habakkuk is similar in his doxological prayer:
17 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,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
19 God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places. – Habakkuk 3:17-19 (ESV)
He, too, acknowledges that nothing may change for the better, but he chooses to trust in the one who is the God of his salvation. God is his strength, though the famine comes, the herds die off, and the people go into captivity.
Live By Faith
When we allow God to interpret our suffering, the situation may not be change, but the righteous will live by his faith in the God of his salvation. When we let God through His Word interpret the situation, we can then learn how to entrust our souls to the faithful Creator while doing good (1 Peter 4:19). Living by faith allows us to echo Asaph in Psalm 73 and the prophet Habakkuk, “I will rejoice in the Lord, the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:18). So, ask the Lord to give you His perspective in trials so that you would desire sanctification above earthly comfort and trust Him to be faithful to His Word as you rest in Him.
The rest of William’s Cowper’s hymn poignantly comforts us with the unchanging character of God in this way:
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense / but trust Him for His grace;
behind a frowning providence / He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast / unfolding every hour;
the bud may have a bitter taste / but sweet will be the flower.