Study Questions: What Do You Expect [3] - Miracles 301

Date: November 27, 2005
Passage: Habakkuk 1:1-2:4
Message: Miracles 301 – Waiting
Series: What Do You Expect?

1. Discuss the whole culture of “instant”
Give examples of things we now get instantly that we used to have to wait for.
How has this impacted on our ability to wait?

2. Read Habakkuk 1:2-4
Habakkuk is the prophet who wrestled with God.
He stands in a biblical tradition of wrestlers.

Job, the upright man who suffered, wrestled with God in his pain and grief.
Jacob, the wiley conniving cheat, wrestled with God about his future.
David, the man after God’s own heart often wrestled with God about the stresses and injustices of life.

In what way is it right to wrestle with God?
What sorts of things have you wrestled with God about?
What have you discovered?

3. The Prophet’s message didn’t cut ice any more.
Praying didn’t seeing to change anything.
The prophets were floundering and God was not coming to rescue!
How do you respond spiritually when things seem to go from bad to worse?

4. Read v5-11
It’s as if God says,
“Get ready for it Habakkuk…..this is hard for you to grasp…..but I am doing something that is BIGGER than your immediate need right now for a resolution!”

This was not what Habakkuk expected.
This was not what he would do.
He had a much simpler plan than RAISING UP Babylonians and that is PUTTING DOWN wickedness where ever it was!

Our plans invariably seem simpler and more workable than Gods!
Most times, they involve much quicker time span!

Why do our plans seem so much simpler than God’s?
What other things do we need to consider when we pray or when we wrestle with God?

5. Sometimes that is how it feels isn’t it? I think all of us
love easy answers to our questions and easy solutions to our problems. But easy answers and easy solutions produce SHALLOW CONVICTIONS.

I think part of us wants easy miracles. We want miracles we hardly have to work for or pray for. But I think easy miracles produce SHALLOW FAITH.

Discuss

6. Read Habakkuk 2:1-4
It is one thing to wrestle with God but it is another thing to desert the post!
It’s hard to be on hold!
We know the feeling of wanting to walk away when things get hard!

How do we deal with times like this?
Give examples from the Bible where it would have been easy to walk away rather than stay at it.

7. Deuteronomy 8:7 says, “The Lord is bringing you into a
good land--a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.”

When it comes to miracles, we often want God to leave the digging part out!
We want the Promise Land with mines all dug!

How can we become more robust in our faith?
How do we rid the idea that God wants to ‘do it all for us’?

8. Read Habakkuk 3:16-19
“Second only to suffering, waiting may be the greatest teacher and trainer in godliness, maturity, and genuine spirituality most of us ever encounter.”
Richard Hendrix, Leadership, Vol. 7, no. 3
Discuss