“I have set before you life and death,
the blessing and the curse.
Choose life, then”
Deut 30: 15 – 20
There’s a scene in the cult classic, The Matrix – where the protagonist Neo is offered a choice. “You take the blue pill… the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill… you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
I know I am supposed to choose life and yes, the red pill, but right now, looking at the grim realities of a post pandemic world, economic and political crisis and my own life in limbo, I prefer to retreat back into my own oasis of oblivion.
The Prophet Habbakuk struggled with the same frustration as he saw his world torn apart by foreign threats. –
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4 So the law becomes slack
and justice never prevails.
Habbakuk 1- 4
Hearing his cry, God replies, with some words of comfort, but those essentially echoed in the message today. Choose life – heeding his voice (trust), and holding fast to him (obedience).
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.
Habakkuk 2: 3
When I think about it, when life seems out of control, it’s God who sees the bigger picture. And if we believe that God is good, and that he loves us, we know that God works all things together for our good (Romans 8:28). And so we don’t choose life only because it’s what we’re supposed to do. I’d like to flip the verse around – We heed his voice (obedience) because we love him and he loves us. We hold fast to him (trust) because we know he’s Good and in doing these things, we Choose Life.
That’s what our friend Habbakuk did, at the end of it…
Though the fig tree does not blossom,
and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails,
and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold,
and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will exult in the God of my salvation.
Habbakuk 3: 17-18
May I receive the grace to pray the same.
The Jabberroxy 