Devotional - week of November 23, 2008

STRAIGHTENED LIVES

Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked; but the righteous will live by their faith. Habakkuk 2:4

The inference of the word “crooked” is that something is not straight or not right. It is disturbing for a person seeking to live a straight life to discover he is not doing so.

Obviously, a person who is wasting his life by using drugs and alcohol is living a crooked life. A person who has selfish ambitions and does anything he can to become rich is living a crooked life. Dishonest people are referred to as being crooked in their dealings. Society calls criminals crooks.

However, in the eyes of Habakkuk, a person of high morals and decency can be living a crooked life. He says that a person living in pride and not faith is living a crooked life.

We know that our sin nature is pride. We think we are wise. Until God changes us, no one can tell us what to do—not even God. We think we know what is best for us, for others and for the Kingdom of God.

So, in light of Scripture, if we want a straight life rather than a crooked life, we need to change. We must deal with our pride—our faith in ourselves.

When God puts us in desperate circumstances, in His sovereignty He straightens out our lives. He becomes all that we have and we collapse on Him in a state of dependence.

Those of us who understand and experience our oneness with Christ know that we also are participating in the straightening out of our lives.

It is said that a respected seminary professor would say, “God hits some mighty good licks with some mighty crooked sticks.” He must have had in mind more than pride when he said that.

From Habakkuk’s perspective, God could hit few good licks with crooked sticks. We thank God that increasingly He can use us to “hit some mighty good licks” as our lives are straightened out by increasing freedom from pride and a growing faith in God.

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