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Have you ever been playing Madden on Xbox and had a perfect season going? You are winning every game by four touchdowns, and then you have that one game. You know, the game where you fumble randomly three times and the other team returns them for a touchdown. The game where your quarterback gets hurt, and you lose the game and your perfect season.
What do you say after that? “This isn’t fair.”
Well, it’s true that life’s not fair. Unfair stuff is going to happen to you. Your car is going to break down. You’re going to be unable to find a summer job. You might run out of money for college and you’re going to think, this isn’t fair. You’re right. Life is going to be unfair to you. The question is, what do you do when life is unfair? How do you respond? Well, we find the answer in Habakkuk.
Habakkuk 2:4 Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. But the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God.
What’s going on in this verse is that God is talking about two different types of truth: God’s truth and the world’s truth. But one of these truths is really a lie.
The World Teaches Us a Lie
Most of the time, we are taught truth that comes from the world. The world is anyone or anything that is against God. Pretty much everything on TV, online, or even stuff that most people in your school say comes from the world. The world’s truth is that you should live life on your terms. Life is all about you. It’s about what makes you happy and leaves you feeling good.
If you want to lie to get out of a problem, go ahead. If you want to say something rude about someone else to make yourself look good, go ahead. This is the lie that the world teaches.
This is the lie that God condemns in Habakkuk. He says that people who live that way are proud. They think that they have all the answers. They trust in themselves and it messes up their lives. People who believe this lie freak out when life is unfair. They don’t think that they should ever have their plans for life get messed up.
Well, if that’s the lie, then let’s look at the truth.
God teaches us to trust in him
God says that, when life is unfair, we need to have a different response. We need to trust in him. Remember, the righteous live by their faith in God. Righteous means that you are in a right relationship with God. You trust in God for your salvation so you have a relationship with him. Faith is just another word for trust. When life gets messy, God wants you to trust in him. Life is going to be unfair sometimes. Instead of getting mad at our circumstances, God wants us to trust his plans.
I know that being told to trust in God may not sound like you are actually doing something, but it involves action. It means that you are obeying God and following him. When life is unfair, there are two ways to turn. I hope you choose God’s way.
Discussion Questions:
- Watch the video together or invite someone to summarize the topic.
- Describe a time in your life when you were treated unfairly.
- How do you typically respond when someone treats you unfairly?
- Read Habakkuk 2:4. Give an example of what it looks like to trust in yourself and not in God.
- Why do you think God says that trusting in yourself makes you prideful?
- Think of someone in your life who really lives by trusting in God. In what ways can you learn from them and their life?
- What would it look like to actively trust in God with your life today? What does trusting in God look like when life is unfair?
- Write a personal action step based on this conversation.
