Habakkuk for the Holidays

Habakkuk 1

If I’m honest, when I pray, I have two categories of expectation: the means God uses to answer my prayer and the timing in which God answers. The means include certain types of people or situations through which I expect God to work or make changes. My expectation on timing usually = fast.  

Habakkuk has been pleading for God to intervene in the sinfulness he sees around him, but God’s answer comes with a warning that He’s working through means Habakkuk is not expecting. He’s not sending a prophet, or an angel, or a Proverbs 31 woman to show the way. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” God says. 

He goes on to tell Habakkuk that His chosen tool of judgment on His people’s disobedience is the self-absorbed, dreaded enemy, the Babylonians, who use people for their own idolatrous ends. And God was right - Habakkuk is shocked that this is God’s answer to the perversion in his world. To Habakkuk, the Babylonians are even more depraved than Israel. How can God use depravity to correct those who don’t seem to be nearly as evil? God didn’t seem to notice that the enemy’s victory just fueled their pride. 

Generations prior, this was the consequence God had actually told them would come if His people walked away from Him. Reeling from the understanding that this is God’s means, Habakkuk has a new question about timing.  The opening verse began with his question, “How long will I cry out and you won’t answer?”,  but in the final verse of the chapter, it shifts to, “Will the enemy’s rampage go on forever?!” Chapter 1 is bookended by critiques about timing. “How long?…forever?”

What do we do when God’s means and His timing confuse us? We keep reading into Habakkuk 2:1 for his response: we station ourselves in expectation, like a guard on a tower, to look out with eyes of faith. My station is on a built-in window bench in our living room where I anticipate hearing from God as I wrestle through his seemingly questionable means or timing in response to my prayers. Stepping into this new year, do you have a physical location that represents spiritual expectation?

Habakkuk for the Holidays

At First Glance

I don’t know any baby boys named after this prophet. I’ve met Isaiah’s, Jeremiah’s, and even a Zechariah, but never a Habakkuk.

Habakkuk seems more like a word invented by a desperate Scrabble player: random, obscure letters, all in a line. It doesn’t really make sense. 

When life itself doesn’t make sense, Habakkuk speaks. His opening lines to God are essentially,  “Are you not paying attention? If you could really hear and save, you should have intervened by now.” and “Why are you so passive? If your Word is truly powerful, it should change things for your people.” His experience in life is not confirming what God says; in fact, it’s threatening what Habakkuk thinks about God. Sound familiar?

I relate to this conflicted prophet, holding God at arm’s length when circumstances seem to say something irreconcilable with what I know about God. I’m all about making sense of things when life feels like an unusual assortment of Scrabble letters, and when I can’t, I resort to questions like his.  

But his name might actually be a clue into how to respond when life is disorienting. According to The Bible Knowledge Commentary, the name Habakkuk could be related to the Hebrew word embrace. 

Throughout the 3-chapter conversation he has with God, he illustrates embracing God’s character, though not understanding God’s ways; he’s an example of fully embracing his observations and not letting go of truth. And the link that wraps its arms around the paradox of life is faith. The righteous live by faith, not by what they see. Habakkuk, trembling about what God reveals by the end of the book, rejoices by faith in the God who holds him in a steady embrace.

If your holidays are filled with celebrating in spite of ongoing tensions; singing praises about Christ’s birth with unanswered prayers like untied ribbon in your heart; anticipating God’s guidance in the new year, while still unsettled about what that will mean for you, you are embracing the experience of Habakkuk for the holidays.
May the God of your salvation and the Lord who is your strength give you the same joy Habakkuk found in Him.