This Sunday the Scripture readings begin with a lament from the prophet Habakkuk, one of the shortest books of the Old Testament and not one that we hear often, but one that it's important we do.
In this passage Habakkuk is openly complaining that God seems to be allowing God's people to suffer and not doing anything about it. Why is there injustice, he asks. Why do tyranny, outrage, and violence flourish in the world? And more particularly, why is it happening to me?
First of all, let's consider what Habakkuk is doing here. He is engaging in a frank and open dialogue with God. He is not reciting prayers, but he is praying. He is opening his heart, baring his soul, and setting his troubles before God.
And God answers Habakkuk, but not perhaps in the way that he expects. There is no promise of better times, no assurance that God will rescue the people. Instead, God acknowledges the people's suffering, and promises to walk through it with them.
At times we have a tendency to look at suffering and attempt to console ourselves and one another by looking upon it as God's plan. That God has a plan that is bigger than our understanding, and that our suffering is somehow a part of that plan. But for me, the problem with this way of trying to reconcile suffering with our image of God is that God would be content for us to suffer.
Consider instead the possibility that God is not content in our suffering, but that God suffers with us. That the heart of God is also open, and is touched by our pain. That God has not abandoned us when things are going wrong, but is sitting beside us. This is the root of compassion - to suffer with. That, having been made in the image and likeness of God, we know that our pain is shared and understood.
So, what do we learn from suffering, and the example of Habakkuk?
Hopefully we learn, like God, to exercise compassion - for ourselves and for others. Even for those we don't like. Perhaps especially for those we don't like, so that they might be changed by our example. And hopefully we come to trust that God is there with us through it all.
And hopefully we learn too that, sometimes, prayer is simply opening our heart to God. Pouring ourselves out, and allowing God's compassion to change us and how we receive our suffering, if not our circumstances.
There is nothing wrong with prayer learned by rote - especially if it helps to focus our heart and mind on God. But there is richness too in simply sitting with God as we would with someone we trust - asking big questions and sharing our hopes, fears and ordinariness.
That trust in God's presence, even in suffering, is what I would call faith.
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