Living by faith is a bewildering venture. We rarely know what's coming next, and not many things turn out the way we anticipate......That God-followers don't get preferential treatment in life. Habakkuk speaks our word to God. He gives voice to our bewilderment, articulates our puzzled attempts to make sense of things, faces God with our disappointment with God. He insists that God pay attention to us, and he insists with a prophet's characteristic no-nonsense bluntness. The circumstances that aroused Habakkuk took place in the seventh century B.C. The prophet realised that God was going to use the godless military machine of Babylon to bring God's judgment on God's own people - using a godless nation to punish a godly nation! It didn't make sense, and Habakkuk was quick and bold to say so. He dared to voice his feelings that God didn't know his own God business.
But this prophet companion who stands at our side does something even more important: He waits and he listens. It is in his waiting and listening - which then turns into his praying - that he found himself inhabiting the large world of God's sovereignty. Only there did he eventually realise that the believing-in-God life, the steady trusting-in-God life, is the full life, the only real life. Habakkuk started out exactly where we start out with our puzzled complaints and God-accusations, but he didn't stay there. He ended up in a world, along with us, where every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. - Introduction to Habakkuk, The Message.
GOD, how long do I have to cry out for help before you listen? How many times do I have to yell, "Help! Murder! Police!" before you come to the rescue? Why do you force me to look at evil, stare trouble in the face day after day? Anarchy and violence break out, quarrels and fights all over the place. Law and order fall to pieces. Justice is a joke. The wicked have the righteous hamstrung and stand justice on its head. Habakkuk 1:1-4 The Message.
What's God going to say to my questions? I'm braced for the worst. I'll climb to the lookout tower and scan the horizon. I'll wait to see what God says, how he'll answer my complaint. And then GOD answered: "Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what's coming. It aches for the coming - it can hardly wait! And it doesn't lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time. Habakkuk 2:1-3 The Message.
A prayer of the prophet Habakkuk, with orchestra: GOD, I've heard what our ancestors say about you, and I'm stopped in my tracks, down on my knees. Do among us what you did among them. Work among us as you worked among them. And as you bring judgment, as you surely must, remember mercy. Habakkuk 3:1-2 The Message.
Though the cherry trees don't blossom and the strawberries don't ripen, though the apples are worm-eaten and the wheat fields stunted, though the sheep pens are sheepless and the cattle barns empty, I'm singing joyful praise to GOD. I'm turning cartwheels of joy to my Saviour God. Counting on GOD's Rule to prevail, I take heart and gain strength. I run like a deer. I feel like I'm king of the mountain! Habakkuk 3:17-19 The Message. (Father, may You bless the reading of Your Word).
Death can wait. Pour out your energies into life. In this imperfect world that we live in, there will come a time when God's justice will prevail!
Shalom,
Sv ".+
No comments:
Post a Comment