Week of August 13

What would you do if your prayers seemed unanswered and your circumstances remained unchanged? Many of us would long to have a meeting with God where we could air out our differences with Him, but we would likely never follow through. Well, Habakkuk did! The tiny nation of Judah was surrounded by evil wickedness and war, and the people found themselves in a constant state of lamentation. God would permit the godless Babylonians to subdue and humiliate the nation (Habakkuk 1). The horror for Judah was not so much the judgment of God but through whom it came. Habakkuk, however, turns to praise and writes one of the most powerful passages in the Old Testament. Let’s look carefully at his words and witness today.

This setting was not even Dickensian because there was not even “the best of times” to balance out the misery. We may wonder how the prophet Habakkuk could remain so optimistic in the face of such horror. His prophecy was not dated, but it was likely penned sometime between 640 and 614 B.C. This was a century of turmoil where wicked kings ruled, like Judah’s Manasseh and Amon and Babylon’s tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 B.C.).
 
There was a brief interval from all of Judah’s wickedness during the reign of Josiah, but this vanished quickly when he was killed in battle at Megiddo (609 B.C.). The northern ten tribes of Israel had fallen to Assyrian conquest in 722 B.C, and it was only a matter of time before the southern kingdom of Judah would fall to the Babylonians in 586 B.C.

The subtitle likely voices what you are wondering in your mind! I believe there is a message from God for our lives because most of us could construct a similar religio-political timeline in our contemporary lifetimes. We may pick up our faith story as a people from the end of World War II and track the political and spiritual vitality of our nation to draw a comparison. I’m sure that we will recognize some similarities between our time and the prophet’s era. Frankly, our spiritual history has not been all that pretty either.

Principle #1: We do not get to pick the source of our discipline. Funny, but I recall the time that I gave my young son a choice in the discipline he would receive. He would receive a swat or sit for a period to reflect upon his behavior. I overheard his older sister in the hallway, “Choose the swat, not the time-out, because he doesn’t hit that hard and it won’t hurt with your diaper on.” I still smile whenever I think about that event, but the smile quickly drains from my face when I consider the discipline I have endured as a gown-up. Adult discipline does inflict some pain, doesn’t it? Take a moment and read two New Testament passages on God’s discipline and its benefit (James 1:2-4, 5, & 12; Hebrews 12:3-11, esp. v. 11!).
 
Habakkuk prophesies Judah’s downfall and laments the fact that the Chaldeans (Babylon) were the ones God used to judge His people (1:5-11), and he dares to call God into question. The big question was how could God allow the horrible oppression under Babylon to continue? The answer to the question was simple—God would not allow the sin of His people to go unpunished. Habakkuk sees the sin and knows that God must judge (cf. 1:2-4).
 
Furthermore, why also would He allow a more wicked nation to be an instrument of judgment against Judah? God would indeed (and still does) hold the foreign nation accountable and exercise His judgment on Babylon. These are the big questions, but one more question remains. What are we to do about our circumstances today?

Principle #2: God’s discipline is for our benefit. Our hope is in the Lord regardless of the age in which we live. The righteous will indeed live by faith (2:4). Habakkuk writes our focal passage, and it provides us with a wonderful affirmation of faith, despite our circumstances. We remain hopeful because we know the ultimate outcome of history.
 
However, the real story in Habakkuk’s day lay within the hearts of God’s faithful people. They showed their trust in God by accepting His program of judgment in their lives. By so doing, they released all the tension that their earlier questions had raised and had found His peace in their storm. The prophet concludes by praising God and rejoicing in His saving power. We do well to follow their faithful example.

I had a woman come to my office one day in tears. As I recall, her marriage was on the rocks, her job was playing out, she was out of money, and, on top of it all, she had had a fender bender in her car on the way to work! Top to bottom her life was in shambles. The age-old maxim states, “Just when we think things cannot get much worse, they do.”
 
Here is our spiritual takeaway for today. Habakkuk writes chapter 3, verse 17, as proof of this previous statement. Notice the ascending order of distress in the verse. Add all the circumstances together as one and you have economic and personal disaster, but thank the Lord for the comma at the end of verse 17!
 
Despite the circumstances surrounding Habakkuk, he chose to remain faithful to the God of his salvation. Well, we boiled life down to its essentials that terrible morning when the woman visited my office and concluded that one solid truth did remain—God’s grace would endure so we determined to trust Him no matter what happened (3:18). Neither the prophet, the woman in my office, nor we today should walk grim faced when we have such hope. We should live with joyful expectancy in the God of our salvation (cf. James 1:2; Romans 8:35-37).

1. Go ahead—Yes!—write down your tough questions today and offer them humbly to God. Then read Job 42:1-6 and Habakkuk 3:17-19 again. Trust His plan and purpose for your life.
 
2. I believe that we would do well as a nation if we were to pen our own national lament. Election meddling, nuclear threatening, and terroristic happenings all signal that great evils surround us and very often reside within our own hearts as a people. Pray for God’s peace across the globe.
 
3. For Families: I love the same passage above as it reads in The Message. It says,

Because our children are often sensitive to things adults have forgotten to see, or hear, or feel, invite them to hear this passage as you read it out loud. Then ask them to sit quietly for a few moments, and to respond to it creatively. They can draw, paint, dance, rap, or use some other way to express how they feel about this very special declaration of praise and faithfulness. Be sure to send your children’s artwork, by way of snapshot, so we can see it too! Send it to [email protected]. We will place their pictures on our praise wall!

May your paths be straight,
Larry C. Ashlock