When God Moves It Is Frightening

The Minor Prophets Speak to Today

Do You Want God To Move?

Habakkuk 3:16

 ______________________________________________________

  
I trembled inside when I heard this;

my lips quivered with fear.
My legs gave way beneath me,
and I shook in terror.
I will wait quietly for the coming day
when disaster will strike the people who invade us.

______________________________________________________

Understanding what happens when God moves to save us humbles us. Do we really want this to happen to our detractors? Do we want this to happen to God's enemies if is going to happen today. Do we really want God to move?

When we catch a vision of what happens when God answers our prayers for his salvation and for him to show his sovereignty in our day:

It makes us tremble inside.

It is not some wonderful wave of his hand and alakazam the opposition to us and our beliefs finally gets it and rejoices with us. Read the book of Revelations. That does not happen.

Our lips quiver with fear.

It is not a political abandonment of opposition. It is not a peaceful laying down of their arms or the ceasing of their terrorist attacks and persecutions against us. It is a time of destruction. The physical results, the political turmoil, the social upheaval, are terrifying to witness.

Our legs give way beneath us.

We will be tempted to ask God to stay his hand, to stop moving. Because the results are so terrifying and living through them so challenging, we get weak kneed. We gasp and swear we too are going to fall down.

We shake in terror.

That terror comes from witnessing  the horrible effects of God's judgment on his enemies, those who oppose him, in this our day. Terror that we too will be engulfed and die, or be ruined along with the others.

We will wait quietly for the coming day.

When we catch a vision of what happens when God answers our prayers for his salvation and for him to show his sovereignty, we quit our striving to correct the world and win our rights. We stop agitating and playing God trying to manipulate our world into righting itself.

The terror of what it take for God to answer our prayers, the awareness of the awesome reality of what it will be physically, emotionally, and socially demanded of us to witness to and take care of those ravaged by God's movement, will silence us.

We will be propelled into waiting - into the one thing God has been calling his people to do since the creation of the earth - be still and know that I am God - rest in me.

______________________________________________________

Pictures in the God Moves Composite:
Raging Waters of the James by The Library of Virginia @flickr.com
Anc.1964aa by fairwary530 All rights reserved @flickr.com
Tsunami Hits Minamisoma (1) by 路上写真家 @flickr.com
Forest Fire by view_camper Some rights reserved @flickr.com
War Damage Bosnia by Joseph A Ferris III Some rights reserved@flickr.com">
Port-au-Prince Streets Left in Rubble After Quake by United Nations Photo Some rights reserved @flickr.com