'Yet I will rejoice'

Questions, questions, questions.

‘Why doesn’t God do something?’

‘Does he not care about me and my people?’

The prophet Habakkuk confronts God with his perplexity and confusion. Strife and violence abound, and justice and judgement are failing: ‘the wicked surround the righteous’. No wonder Habakkuk is crying out.

Yet he’s using direct and personal terms: ‘My God, my Holy One’. He’s asking, ‘O, Lord, are you not from everlasting?’ The tone changes. The ‘why’ question gives way to an acknowledgment of who God is. Habakkuk waits to hear God’s voice.

Crucially, he realises that invasion, however unwelcome, is something which God has ordained.

When things go wrong and we reel in shock and horror, it’s easy to allow questions to swamp us. Not unlike Habakkuk really. Our circumstances seem to contradict what we know about God.

But as Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones reminds us in Spiritual Depression, ‘You have to address yourself, question yourself … remind yourself of who God is … and what he has done.’

Habakkuk didn’t ignore his troubling questions; he was realistic about the suffering ahead. Yet he didn’t stop there. The ‘hymn of faith’ at the end of chapter three is a challenge to exercise faith based on deep trust in God, our ‘refuge and strength’.  

This article appears in the official magazine of Worldwide, Bangor, N Ireland, a popular missionary conference with a long and illustrious history, where Jonathan Lamb will be doing the Bible readings this year on Habakkuk. 

Below you'll find Jonathan Lamb's various titles with IVP, including his devotional on Habakkuk.