Habakkuk - Dannah Gresh

Is God really in control? Has He seemed silent in your life?

Again, you can find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Gary, you've been a pastor at the same church for almost 50 years. You've led studies. You've preached a lot of sermons. But the topic that we're going to talk about today, I think, is something that a lot of Christians struggle with, and that is, can I trust God when I can't understand what He's doing?

Can I trust Him even when He feels silent? Well, you know, Chris, my thought is, are there any Christians who have not somewhere along the line wondered, what is God up to? I don't understand what's happening in my life, you know, and I'm talking, I'm praying, I'm asking, I don't get any answers. I think most Christians have gone through that because, let's face it, God doesn't always immediately answer us, you know, and He doesn't always give us the whys of what's happening in our lives.

This is where I think the whole thing of faith comes in, you know, that we choose to believe God even when we don't always understand what's happening in our lives. So I am really looking forward to our conversation today on this topic. Dana Grash is a bestselling author, speaker, founder of True Girl, America's most popular Christian tween event. She's written more than 20 books, including And the Bride Wore White and Lies Girls Believe, co-authored with Nancy Damas-Wagamath. She's a leading expert on the subject of sexual theology and parenting tweens and teens, and her featured resource, again, at FiveLoveLanguages.com is the study Habakkuk, Remembering God's Faithfulness When He Seems Silent.

Again, go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well, Dana, welcome back to Building Relationships. My pleasure. Always a joy to be with you, Gary. Well, thank you. You know, here at the start of the new year, let's look back for a moment.

Do we have to? What kind of challenges did you and your family face last year? This time last year, we were celebrating new grandbaby girls. I became a grandma for the first time of adding Zoey's tween girls. Best news ever, but they were preemies, and one of them actually had her lung collapse. So the physicians sent them home with this instruction.

Do not let them be exposed to any respiratory viruses for the next six months. So you can imagine that that threw us for a tailspin when just weeks later, a novel respiratory virus was in the world, set loose as a pandemic, took me to my knees, and I'll tell you, it was just one event after another last year. I call last year the fastest, slowest year ever, because it couldn't go fast enough, but at the same time, it really was a year where we were slowed down to ponder. Who is God? What is he doing?

Is he good? Yeah. So with all the fear and instability and all the unknown of 2020, where do you think God was in all that? You know, I'm so thankful. This is something, every now and then, something happens that just has to be providence. It's like, that can't be a circumstance. It has to be God. And I had my publisher asking me for years if I would write a Bible study.

He said, no, no, no, no, no. Finally, reluctantly decided that I would do one, because for some ongoing accountability and licensing through my board, I needed to outline a book of the Bible. It was kind of like, throw a dart and pick a book, and it ended up being Habakkuk.

Because it's three short chapters, how hard can that be? But I didn't know that it's a book about believing that God is good and maintains control, even when there's so much evil and tragedy and hardship in the world around us. This book that's often overlooked during times of peace and prosperity is the one, through the generations, people have turned to when they need to know how to talk to God during hard times. World War II was one of the times when people just started opening their books, their Bibles, to the book of Habakkuk. And I think I saw that last year, too, as people were saying, God, what are you doing?

And we get to have a front row seat to watch a man who was shaken by the evil and suffering of the world, and he progresses to become a shining example of walking by faith. Yeah. Well, we do know that last year there was an epidemic of suicide, depression, anxiety among young people.

And, you know, in this book and in your book and in the book of Habakkuk, you really communicate that the Bible has answers to these kind of struggles, right? Oh, absolutely. You know, it concerns me. I'm so glad that we were concerned about our lungs last year.

That's a good, important thing, and I think it matters. But it was alarming to me that suicide became the second leading cause of death for 15 to 29-year-olds. But I don't know that we talked about it with the same concern, even though it's a deadly killer.

Now, here's an epidemic that I don't think getting the attention it deserves. But I am a firm believer in Christian counseling. I'm a firm believer in getting help from a physician if you need to.

After my second baby and my second experience with postpartum depression, I got the help of a physician. My husband and I should own stock in Christian counseling. But, you know, I think even though those are good tools, many times we don't apply the most powerful ointment to our mental unwellness. And that is God's truth. His Word.

It has got to be standard issue weaponry for our battle with fear, depression, hopelessness, anxiety. It must be. And I feel like that last year we needed a bigger dose of God's Word than maybe we even realized. Although some of us have been realizing that. Well, let's look at the life of Habakkuk. How does this somewhat obscure Old Testament prophet relate to us? Oh, it is so germane to our days.

It's very contemporary in its application. Just like looking at the very end of the book, Habakkuk finally gets to a place, after a horrific period in his history, where he says, though the olive won't produce food, and the wheat field is barren, and the grapes don't have any juice for us, and there's no cattle in the field, and he goes on through all the horrible things. He says, and yet, in this, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

I will take joy in the God of my salvation. Now, to us, that sounds like, I don't know, a bad day on a hobby farm, but for Habakkuk, it was his economic portfolio. It was his nation's stability. And he was saying, when the whole nation falls apart, even here in this, I have discovered a way to rejoice. That's good stuff. We all need it.

Absolutely. Why do you think God so often seems to want us to wait during these, you know, these kind of periods of life? Well, I guess I can only say from my own personal point of view, that last year, when God slowed me down, I wasn't traveling to speak and minister like I had been. I wasn't doing some of the things I enjoyed, even for periods of time.

I wasn't seeing family and friends. That waiting forced me to look and see where he was working. And what I discovered is that sometimes the work God is most often trying to do isn't in the world around me, making it perfect and cozy and just wonderful for me, but it's in my heart. And I found my prayers moving from God stop the pandemic, God fix our economy, God help our government, God help our broken nation.

And it became, sometime in October, it became more like, God, what do you want? I remember sitting in a cornfield. I was just walking my dog one day and I just sat down. I looked at the sun setting and I said, God, what do you want?

How can I be a part of what you're doing? It was almost like I cried uncle. And I've learned that my heart was pretty hyper focused on my world being just so. And God wanted me last year to learn to be more obsessed with my heart being in tune to his than my world being everything that I want.

Yeah. I'm sure that some of our listeners today are feeling that they prayed and God hadn't answered. Why do you think we sometimes feel that way? Well, I think we often feel that way when God is doing things, but they're not the things that we really want. One of the things that was hard for me to process last year, and let me say I'm still processing it, so maybe you can help me, is as we were hit with a worldwide pandemic, I was just coming out of studying the Book of Habakkuk, where I looked really closely at what the Bible calls pestilence.

And pestilence is anytime there is a sickness or disease that's widespread in any land. And every single time that it occurred in the scriptures, for example, in the probably most prominent place in scripture would be Egypt, when God says, let my people go. Well, if God was really only trying to get Pharaoh to let his people go, then one miraculous act could have been enough. But God allows Pharaoh's heart, and it actually says he hardens Pharaoh's heart, and God's people have to stay under that time of waiting and feeling like, God, why aren't you setting us free?

Aren't you doing something? We're crying out to you, do something. But here's the thing, as you look, God's people in that nation, in Egypt, had started to live like everyone else, act like everyone else, they wanted to have the goods and the services of everyone else, and the gods of everyone else. And I think that those plagues weren't just about telling the evil pagan people, hey, God is God, but it was about reminding God's people, hey, remember, I am God. And he's so much more concerned about what happens in our hearts than in our world. And I had to look at that and say, God, is this a wake-up call? And you know what, Gary, people all across the world started saying, I think that is a wake-up call from God.

I wonder, have we fully awakened, or did we hit snooze? Have we listened to what God was trying to tell us? I don't think he's as silent as we think. So let's talk about hearing God, hearing from God. I think there's confusion sometimes about how we hear God's voice, so talk to us about that. Well, the one thing we know is, sure, is that we can hear God's voice in the pages of Scripture.

He's written down some of his words for us to hear, and I think anybody who's having trouble hearing from God, or they feel like they never hear from God, that's where you begin. And I liken it to this, you know, I could be in a room and be blindfolded with 5,000 other men, and every man says my name, and I know which one is my husband. I know his voice. Your listeners, Gary, you picked up the phone and said, hi, Dana, it's Gary. Of course I know it's Gary.

All of us that listen to you on this podcast know it's Gary. We've become familiar with your voice, and so we recognize it. God's Word gives us that same ability. Of course, it's more of an inner hearing, it's not an audible ear hearing, but we can recognize God's voice because we become familiar with it. And as you're faithful to do that, God does start to speak to you in still, small voices.

And I like to say, there's like five characteristics, I'll just share one of them. You can back all of these up in Scripture, but one of them is, and remember, it never disagrees with God's written Word, but one of them is it sounds almost contrary to Dana. The thoughts that are like, that's not a very normal Dana thought. For example, I'm an extreme introvert, so if I'm walking through the grocery store and I see someone I know, like the Dana introvert is like, I've talked to so many people already today, let's go down the other aisle. But if I see someone I know and I sense, you need to go ask them how they are, if they're okay, they might need prayed for.

That is not Dana. And so I begin to recognize the difference between my own inner voice and God's inner voice and I start to obey it. And that's the other thing, you know what, as you obey it, God speaks to you more and more and more and more. So if I walk past that person and I ignore that person when God says, hey, go talk to that person and pray for them, then I talk to him on the drive home and I say, hey God, the traffic's really bad, can you, you know, of course, why have you got to listen to me when I haven't been obedient and listened to him? As I'm obedient, his voice is clearer and clearer to me and he speaks more and more. Things like that I learned about in the book of Habakkuk.

Yeah, yeah. So that particular one is kind of an inner sense that God wants you to do something. Yeah, I've experienced that, absolutely.

And also circumstances. Sometimes he puts circumstances right in front of you and you say, that can't be a coincidence, it can't be. That has to be the Lord orchestrating something, directing my steps, ordering the course of my day or my life. And you can learn to feel more confident about that as you're in the Word and becoming familiar with his voice. It all goes back to being in the Word. You talk in the book about wrestling with God or struggling with things that are going on in your life. Some Christians feel guilty when they're struggling with believing God about certain things.

How do you deal with that? Well, one of the things I got from Habakkuk, he gave me this wonderful gift. He wrote me a permission slip to wrestle with God. It was kind of like a hall pass from my good Christian behavior. And what I discovered is that, you know, he starts the book out with almost, I would call it smack talk, because he says, God, how long do I have to pray? Your law is paralyzed. Justice is perverted. Like, these are the words the prophet speaks to God.

And I just went, whoa, like, I've felt some things like that. I've not felt the permission to say them. But here's the thing, it's an honest exchange. He's coming to God with what's in him.

C.S. Lewis says, bring to God what is in you, not what should be. And I think so many times we fake our conversation with God by bringing to him the good Christian conversation. He already knows when we're angry and frustrated and disappointed. Let's take those questions to him by wrestling with him in conversation and prayer. He can handle it.

Yeah. Well, tell us about Habakkuk. Now, many of us know that he was a prophet, but a lot of folks don't know very much at all about his life.

Yeah, well, isn't that easy to know about his life? The guy speaks in poetry. He doesn't like prose, you know.

I'm really good. I like subjects, verbs, and direct objects. Those sentences I can understand. But when I get to the poetic verses in the Scriptures, they slow me down and I think, what is he saying?

What is he talking about? So it's harder to get to know Habakkuk, but this is my promise. If you open up the book of Habakkuk, I've not known anybody that studied him that didn't say at the end, he feels like a friend.

I feel like I know him. And I think one of the qualities that makes us feel that way is his frustration, is his disappointment in God, because all of us have been there at one point or another. But something that's I think really important to know is that he was a prophet at a time when they had a really bad leadership in the government of his nation, the nation of Judah. And he was frustrated with that. And one of the things that was really sad about that is that Jehoiakim was the king, and he was the son of Josiah. And Josiah was one of the few godly and good kings in the history of God's people. And when he was just eight years old, he became king. And when he was in his twenties, he looked around and he saw idol worship and he saw all kinds of icky stuff, and he looked in the temple and said, oh my, it's in rubble, it's in dust.

What should we do? This is God's house, let's clean it up, let's fix it up. While they're fixing it up, they discover something that they had never, he had never heard of.

He finds a book. They think it's maybe the book of Deuteronomy. Bible scholars aren't sure. But it's the Word of God, the written Word of God.

It was under rubble and dust. And he tells them, read it to me, tell me what it says. And when he hears the Word of God, his heart is broken and he bursts into tears.

And he says, we must reform our nation. And they tear down the high places and they finish fixing up the temple and they restore a godly order. And so after that glimmer of hope, he dies.

He's killed on the battlefield and his evil son takes over and they're right back where they began. It's in that moment that Habakkuk has to choose to be a man of faith, a man who walks his walk out with God with integrity and joy in spite of his grieving over what's broken. And for us, the message is this. How many Bibles can you see, wherever you are right now? Or can you think, how many Bibles are in my living room or my bedroom? We have God's Word everywhere. But when we open it, is our heart broken with the things that break God's heart? Every time we open the Bible, we should be willing to reform our own personal lives, the way that Josiah reformed a nation. Well, you talk about performing, wrestling, and expressing.

What are the differences between these three? I feel like you could have something to say about these, Dr. Chapman. As a therapist who helps us so much think through things, but many times as Christians, we are performers. And we know the right words to say.

We know the right actions to take. But sometimes it's not really what's deep in our heart. It's not honest. We just go through the motions. And on the other spectrum, I feel like today, we're seeing a lot of Christians expressing themselves. And they're kind of picking and choosing what they believe about Christianity, what they believe about the Bible. And they're saying, I'll choose this, this is good.

But these things, that's old, it's ancient, it's out of style, it's out of date. And it's really no listening to God whatsoever. There's a lot of pride and a lot of self-worship in it. But right in the middle is where Habakkuk invites us to live, wrestling. We get to wrestle with God. It's authentic back and forth communication. It's saying, God, I don't like that your word says this.

This is hard for me to understand. And it's also saying, but you are God, and I will trust you. And it's a very authentic place. And I think that's where we are mentally well, we're emotionally well, and we're spiritually whole. It's not a perfect place. It's a messy place.

But it's an honest place. Yeah, and I think most of us can really identify with that. You know, God never ever intended us to just be playing religion, but to be honest about what we're seeing and hearing and feeling and reading his Word. We're looking for direction.

And still, sometimes we are not sure what is the next thing I should be doing. How does God call us to look and see the nations around us today? You know, this is one of the really interesting things for me as I studied Habakkuk. I came to see how very much God loves the nations. When Habakkuk's nation, the nation of Judah, is godless, they've walked away from God. They've worshipped some of the same gods as surrounding pagan cultures.

They are participating in lots of rampant, disrespectful sexual acts, child sacrifice, really rough stuff. And I feel like as I studied the fact that God was going to use an even worse people group to come up against them and teach them a lesson, it took me into the pages of other places in Scripture, like the book of Jonah, where God goes to an evil people group right there in that same area, that near east, ancient near east, and he sends them to Nineveh with what? A message of, you're done, I'm finished?

No, it's a message of a second chance. And I feel like when God says to Habakkuk, look and see the nations, that I looked and I saw, and I saw Egypt, and I saw Assyria and Nineveh, and I saw the Babylonian people and the Chaldean people group, which is the little people group that is going to punish, God's going to use to punish Judah. And I was like, oh, he really does not want anyone to perish. And I looked back on my own heart as an American and I thought, wow, maybe we're as prideful as these ancient people groups were, because that's what God was upset about. He was upset about the pride in Judah.

He was upset about the pride in the Chaldean people. And he wanted them to be humble. He wanted them to be kind. He wanted them to look at one another. I found myself just saying, wow, he's trying to save all of us, me.

And now we're kind of a melting pot, right, all the nations together. What if we could look with each other with respect? What if we could learn that, hey, God wants to save me and he wants to save the person that annoys me like crazy. God wants to save me and the person that votes differently than I do. God wants to save me and, like, that's his heart. And it oozes, I think, out of the pages of Habakkuk.

At least it did for me. Donna, you talk about six habits of living by faith that Habakkuk demonstrated. Tell us about those. Well, we've mentioned one of them, and that was wrestling with God and just being honest and saying, God, do you see what's happening? Are you going to do anything? I am frustrated.

This seems slow. Those are honest prayers to pray. But the thing I love, the next habit of faith, is that even though he's honest with God, he doesn't lose respect. You see him saying, oh, Lord, before he asks a hard question. You see him saying things like, God, I know you're everlasting, so I know you're all powerful. And he's lacing his hard questions and his doubts with what he does already know to be true about God.

And I think if we take to God our doubts and we just, for lack of a better word, just kind of vomit them all over him, we really are veering towards that expressing, just expressing ourselves and saying, this is how I feel, and not checking in with God to see, okay, who are you? Are you everlasting? Are you powerful?

Are you strong? Are you my God? Habakkuk calls him my God. So even though you're asking the honest questions, you're also lacing those questions with what you already know to be true about God. That's a very important choice and act of faith.

Another one that I think is really important is listening. I think sometimes we play ding-dong-bitch with the God of the universe. I think we write him our to-do list and we treat him like a genie in the bottle.

Here, God, fix this today, fix this today, fix this today, ding-dong, and then we run, like nasty schoolboys, right? And Habakkuk says in Chapter 2, the very beginning, he says, after he has asked God all of his hard questions and put some reverence in there, but he's still in a place of trouble doubting, he says, I'm going to climb up in a tower, my watchtower, and I'm going to watch and see what God will say. And it was a really pivotal point for me in my prayer walk last year, and I think it's the turning point in the book of Habakkuk, where he shifts from being a man who's frustrated by all the evil and brokenness in the world, and afterwards, after he's in this place of waiting and listening, that he shifts to be that man who starts to really walk by faith powerfully. If we could just stop and listen, and all of the greats of the faith have practiced this art of listening to God. They're reading his word, they're writing in their prayer journal, they're praying out loud, they're praying with people, but the thing that they say is the hardest is after they do all of those things, is quieting themselves and saying, now, Holy Spirit, what do you want me to do with what I just read? What do you want me to do with that prayer gathering I just had? What do you want me to do in response to how I just wrote my heart out to you in this prayer journal?

I'm listening. That is when our hearts begin to shift from just immature children to walking in faith that's exemplary. Another really important thing to do is to remember to fear God. In this past year, when we've been so fearful, fearful of the media, fearful of, are they telling us the truth? Fearful of disease.

How dangerous is it? Fearful of, if anything happens that's not even related to the virus, will I be able to see my loved ones in the hospital? I mean, you name it, we had some fear last year. And it's not that fear isn't a useful emotion. All of our emotions are good, right? Because God created our emotion, and he said in his word, after he created everything, it is good. So if he created our emotions, fear, anxiety, grief, all of them have useful purposes. What's the use of fear? Well, as I study the book of Habakkuk, I think the use of fear, first and foremost, I mean, it keeps us safe. It's good to run from a bear if you're afraid of bears. That's a good thing. So it keeps us safe sometimes.

But you're not going to stay in a constant, chronic state of fear of bears because that wouldn't be mentally well. But one thing we should stay in a state of fear of is fear of God. Are we honoring him? We should fear if we wouldn't honor him. Are we obeying him? We should fear, not obeying God. But we don't really have that fear. Instead, we're afraid of all the things in this world. And what we're doing is we're watering down the power and the majesty and the omnipotence of God. And so Habakkuk invites us to really recognize where our fear is not directed at the right thing. And it invites us to fear God. That is to honor him, respect him, be in awe of him, worship him, bow before him every day in every circumstance.

That changes things. When you're praying for grandbabies to be healthy and not get the virus because their lungs have collapsed after birth, you go to God with a different awe, with a different worship. You go to God and you say, I'm going to audaciously ask, Lord, that you supernaturally shield my grandbabies from this virus that we don't understand. But you are God. And I respect and I trust whatever road you ask me to walk down. And I know you'll be there. I know you'll be there.

I'm not afraid of that road because I know your grace is on that road for me if that's the one you choose for me. Here's a really important one, Gary. We shouldn't forget this one. I don't know if I'm getting to all of them, but the big expression of Habakkuk's faith is he sings. There were a lot of days last year I didn't feel like singing.

There were a lot of days where I just felt like crumbling. And the very last chapter of Habakkuk is a song. He writes the words to this song, he hands them to the choir master, and he says, hey, go put some great music to these lyrics because we're going to sing. In the middle of the economic brokenness of our nation, we're going to sing worship to God.

And there's a reason for that. One, God is always worthy of our praise and our song, no matter our circumstances, but singing changes us. In a dark place, on a dark day, in a hopeless situation, a song will lift your faith up out of the pit. And I think we need to start this year singing. You know, I certainly agree with that. There are times that I'm really struggling with something, I'm driving down the road, and I will turn on a Christian, you know, radio program, and hear a song, and just start singing with the person that's singing.

And I'm not a singer, okay? There's nobody there but me and God, so it's okay. And it does, it lifts the spirit, it reminds you of the truth, you know, the words of the song. It does something for you, yeah. Those are all powerful, powerful things that help us as we're wrestling with the things that we don't fully understand.

Yeah. There is a verse in the first chapter of Habakkuk, verse 5, that you indicate is such an important verse, but you also say that it's often misunderstood. Can you explain that to us?

I sure can. So this is how my journey with Habakkuk really began. For many years my mother has prayed Habakkuk 1.5 over my life, watch and see, and be utterly amazed, I'm going to do something in your days you wouldn't even believe, even if you were told.

And we put that on Pinterest, we put it on posters and t-shirts, we present it as if it means God's going to do such big amazing things, you're going to be so big and important, and He's going to make everything, your dreams are going to come true. That's not what this meant at all. When God said, look among the nations, you're going to be amazed, I'm going to do something you wouldn't believe even if you were told. He's talking about this teeny tiny little people group called the Chaldeans, they don't even have their own land anymore, they've been overtaken by Babylon.

But God says, I'm going to use them to come put you in time out, Judah. It's not good news. It's not good news. The thing that's going to be amazing is not good news.

But here's what I've come to believe as I've studied through the whole passage, the whole book of Habakkuk, there's something really unusual about the construction of this verse. If we read it in English and it was a little more accurate, it would say, look at the nations and be amazed amazed. We wouldn't do that. We wouldn't put two words in front of each other like that.

We wouldn't use a word to describe a word. So what is the double amazed? What is that I'm going to be amazed amazed, utterly amazed? Well, I've come to think this, that you're going to be amazed at how bad it is, how hard it is, how difficult. Maybe some people listening right now are in the middle of difficult and they're like, I just thought last year had to end better and this year had to start better and it's not.

It's hard. But here's what I think the second amazed is. In the middle of the bad, you're going to be so amazed at how good God is. Because it is in the middle of the bad that we truly understand how good he is and how he is an anchor and how he is a shield and how he is a tower. We don't need those things in good times.

We need them on the hard days. And that's why I think Habakkuk was amazed amazed. As we come to the last section, Dana, we often question God, which Habakkuk did, you know, why are you going to use a pagan nation worse than we are to bring judgment on us? Is questioning God permitted for us in our day?

And if so, what's the proper way to do that? Well, you know, I really do think it is. We see it modeled throughout Scripture. One of the notable examples is John the Baptist, who spent his whole life kind of living a little odd and standing out quite a bit because he believed that he was making the way for the Messiah, for the Savior of the world. And yet, what do we find him doing in his last hours of life? He sends a message to Jesus. He says, are you really the one?

Are you him? He's in prison. He knows he's probably going to be executed. He's about to be, we know, beheaded. And he sends his doubt to Jesus.

And here's the thing that's significant about that. And Habakkuk, he takes his questions to Jesus. They take their questions directly to God.

So many times I think that's not what we want to do. We want to grumble about what we don't understand in the Bible. We want to grumble about what's wrong with church by telling other people what we don't like about church. We want to fuss about what's wrong with Christianity by posting it on our social media feed. But friends, we need to pray more than we post. We need to pray more than we pace. We need to go directly to God with our doubts and our questions and fears. That's the right way, the right thing to do with them. Yeah, yeah.

I love that. He took it to Jesus. We all have questions and you're right. We often turn to other people with our questions and our doubts and our concerns rather than taking them to God. You talk about feasting on the world.

What is that and what difference does that make? Well, maybe it's just me, but I feel like inside of me are two sumo wrestlers. One is the sumo wrestler of my pride and myself and my appetites and my pleasure. The other is the sumo wrestler of my faith and my discipline and my service to the Lord.

And the one I feed is always the one that wins the wrestling matches of the day. So if I'm feeding my spirit, I'm getting up early. Today I got up at 6 a.m.

I didn't want to. I'm not a morning person. I know for some people that's not that early. To me that's the middle of the night. But I know if I don't start my day disciplining my body, failing myself, feasting on the word of God, that I will very quickly, I'll sleep in a little bit, I'll scroll through my news feed, I'll scroll through my social media feed, I start feeding, feasting on the world and my flesh.

That's the sumo wrestler every morning I get to pick which one's going to win today's match. I have to feed my spirit and I have to diet my flesh. So feasting on the word of God rather than feasting on all the things that are going on around us and all the things that we're involved in, etc. And that's been hard with the news feed lately, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like this past year the news feed has just been like, pay attention to me, I am the answer to all of your information problems. And it's really been a battle in my heart to feed myself on the word every day, as opposed to turning first to see what crazy thing happened last night. I need to know. I'm guessing that most Christians spent more time last year listening to newscasts than they did listening to God by spending time in his word.

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing. It was so easy, right? I had days where I did it. I had a lot of days where I lost that battle. You mentioned about Habakkuk climbing up into the watchtower to see what God was going to do.

What does that mean for us? Okay, so I've got to be a little girly for a minute if that's okay. I don't know if that relates to men. Here I am with two men on the air. I have always wanted my time with God to be really experiential. I like to have a candle lit.

I like to have worship music. In the winter I turn my fireplace on. This morning I had my fireplace on. I like the area around me to be orderly.

In the summer I might be outside on my porch looking at the animals, frolicking in the field. But I want it to be this visual experience. I think this is what I've come to this past year through the permission of Habakkuk, as well as looking at the Old Testament tabernacle. There's incense, right? It's inviting my scent into the experience of worshiping God. The artistry, the artifacts in the temple, inviting my eyes to be in the worship of God. The orderliness of the temple. All the measurements are just right.

Everything's just so. Inviting the orderliness of the area to be a place that puts me in a position to listen and watch God. And I always thought that was a crutch and that was a weakness in my personality. I don't know how that works for men.

My husband likes to go out on his tractor. That's where he talks to God. But I feel like that those cravings of being in a space and allowing it to be sensory, that that is a little bit of how God created us. And if Habakkuk says climb up in your watchtower, like there's this whole idea of, yeah, you do talk to God when you're driving, when you're walking, when you're making your coffee. But you also go away to a space that is specifically devoted to in this orderly, beautiful sensory spot. I'm going to pause.

This is my spot to say my spirit is paying attention to God. You think that's OK? I mean, does that work for guys? Because it works for, I think, a lot of girls that are listening.

Yeah, yeah. I was going to say probably most guys would see a watchtower and they would think about the deer stand. But it's the same principle.

It's just different. I bet a lot of praying happens up there in that deer stand and not just for the big buck to come through. Well, what do you hope people are going to walk away with understanding better after they study the book of Habakkuk? Well, Habakkuk is a book that reminds us that God is good even when the world isn't. And it also gives us the right tools to talk to God when we feel so much the depths of the world's brokenness. So I guess I hope people that read it recognize those two things.

I sure did. And people that haven't read it, oh, I hope you'll dive into the book of Habakkuk, whether it's with my Bible study or just your Bible or tools you can find online, because he is a good God, even in the middle of all the brokenness. And as you feast on that and think on that and explore that, you'll feel it, you'll experience it, and you will believe it. Well, Dan, I want to thank you for writing this Bible study. And I would just challenge both ladies and men who are listening to pick up this Bible study, because it will be an asset in studying the book of Habakkuk.

And it's really worth the study. There's just a lot in this book. So thank you for being with us today.

And listen, thanks for all that you're doing and have done through the years to help young girls and parents of young girls. You know, people have asked me, you know, I wrote a book for young men called Choose Greatness. I wrote it with Clarence Shuler, an African-American friend of mine. It's a great book.

Yeah. And people have asked me, why don't you write a book for young gals? And I say, no, no, it's already been written. Just go to Dan and Gretchen's stuff.

It's already been written. Aw, thank you, friend. I appreciate you so much. So thanks for all you're doing. Keep up the good work. And God bless you. You too. God bless. Get your candle and head to the deer stand so you can read and study Habakkuk.

Remembering God's faithfulness when he seems silent. We've got a link to it. Find out more. FiveLoveLanguages.com.

Again, FiveLoveLanguages.com. And next week, if you're struggling with a diagnosis of cancer, don't miss our conversation. Debbie Barr will give real encouragement for cancer patients and caregivers. Now before we go, let me thank our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago, in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.