by H. Leo Boles*

Much trouble and worry come about because we didn't know -— didn't think. Many know and preach, but don't practice. The following is the results of a questionnaire from successful men.

I Wish I Had Known:

1. What I was to make my life's work.

2. That my health after thirty years of age depended largely upon what I ate before reaching the age of twenty-one.

3. How to take care of money.

4. The commercial asset of going neatly and sensibly dressed.

5. That habits are hard to change after twenty-one years.

6. A harvest depends upon the seed sown.

7. Things worthwhile require time, patience, and work.

8. That I can't get something for nothing.

9. That the world will give me what I deserve.

10. That by the sweat of my brow I must earn my bread.

11. That a thorough education brings the best of everything.

12. That honesty is the best policy for right.

13. The value of truth in everything.

14. The folly of not taking the advice of older people.

15. What it really means to parents to rear their son.

16. What hardships and disappointment leaving home against parent's will brings.

17. More of the Bible.

18. The value of the opportunity of serving my fellow-man.

19. That Jesus is with me always.

20. That God's relationship to me is as good as that of a shepherd to his sheep.

*Chapel Talk by H. Leo Boles at David Lipscomb College, Spring, 1928. Taken from A Word Fitly Spoken, by John D. Cox.

by J. Randal Matheny

A novel I'm reading portrays the main character as having been devastated by the death of his son because of cancer. He becomes suicidal, not finding rhyme or reason in the world for the suffering that exists.

Habakkuk is not far from that character. His questions are even larger, even tougher. But instead of thinking of putting a gun in his mouth, the prophet puts his questions to God.

"O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you 'Violence!' and you will not save?" (Hab. 1:2, ESV). Habakkuk is desperate for an answer, but doesn't give up calling on the Lord. In fact, he knows that the only place he can get an answer to his doubts and questions is with the Lord.

The prophet's big Problem is violence. Not natural disaster, but man-to-man cruelty and oppression. He uses the word six times in his small book (1.2, 3, 9, 2:8, 17 [twice]).

Habakkuk has a hard time with the Lord's first answer, that he will punish Judah at the hands of the Babylonians. That leads to a second round of questions. How can a just God send such impious pagans against his own people?

Though the Lord answers that he will also punish the punishers for their own wrong-doing, the essence of Habakkuk's lesson lies in 2:4: "Behold, his soul [like the Babylonians] is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by faith."

God's person must do right, in spite of all the questionings, doubts, gaps of understanding, and horror at the wrong in the world. The righteous one will hold on to the justice of God, who, at the right time and in the right way, will settle accounts. The evil ones will be cut off, but those who keep their faith in God's plan will find life that survives the violence of this world.

Regardless of what happens, then, "I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation" (Hab. 3:19a).

Habakkuk's conversation with the Lord becomes my own. God has answered, and all will be right with the world when he gets through with it. I believe him, and I'll hang in there until we come out to the other side.