How shall we live when God is hiding?

Author: Pastor Kenji
July 24, 2023
Tucked into the middle of the minor prophets in the Old Testament we find the book of Habakkuk.  Although this book is only three short chapters in length, it contains rich wisdom that explores unanswered prayers, injustice, and God’s presence in the world.  Timberview will be spending all summer in this hidden gem.

The book starts with Habakkuk complaining to God.  There is a long tradition of complaining and lamenting and grieving to God in the Bible.  This is never taken to be irreverent or sinful.  This raw emotional honesty is considered worship.  We can be honest with God.

Habakkuk’s complaint is that while violence and injustice run rampant among his people God seems to be ignoring the whole situation.  This book was written about 600 BC probably in Jerusalem.  At this time in history, Jerusalem was the capital of the country of Judah-so Habakkuk is complaining that his own country and his own city and his own people are getting away with murder-and God doesn’t seem to care.  Of course, we share Habakkuk’s complaint sometimes.  We often worry about the injustices and troubles on our country and our city and our families and wonder why God seems to have abandoned us.  The world doesn’t always make sense and it would be great if God would make it make sense.  But He often seems so distant.

But then something amazing happens for Habakkuk.  God answers his prayer!  God speaks back.  

But-as it turns out-this doesn’t solve the problem.  It actually makes it worse.  In Habakkuk chapter one, God’s speech becomes more terrifying than his silence.  God’s says that he will judge Judah by making war on them through the Neo-Babylonian empire.  In graphic language, God describes how the fearsome Babylonian horde will sweep through Judah and plunder the land and its peoples.  

Habakkuk is understandably disturbed by God’s response.  So Habakkuk prays again.  He asks God how he could use violence to solve violence.  It makes sense that God would judge Judah’s wickedness-that seems to be what Habakkuk was hoping for in his initial prayer.  But it didn’t make sense to our prophet that God would use a more wicked and more violent people as his instrument of righteousness.  Why would God use the most wicked to judge the comparatively righteous?  Why would he use the really bad Babylonians to judge the kind of bad Jews in Jerusalem?

God responds to Habakkuk’s new prayer?  In response to Habakkuk’s confusion, God says that eventually the Neo-Babylonian Empire would also be judged for its violence and evil.  In time, the whole earth will be filled with the presence and justice of God.

In the last chapter of the book, Habakkuk prays one last prayer.  His closing prayer is one of the most beautiful prayers in all of scripture.  You should go read it.  Then read it again.  Habakkuk praises God as a mighty warrior who marches across the desert, a storm God who controls the weather, and the source of Habakkuk’s strength even though the prophet is terrified with answered prayer.  In this final prayer, Habakkuk shifts his focus from the world’s sin to God’s strength.

In these three brief chapters, there are many valuable insights.  There are insights about: prayer, emotional honesty in our spirituality, the mysteries and providence of God, mercy, patience, endurance, the temporal nature of civilizations themselves, hope, the dangers of answered prayer, and-perhaps most of all-of faith.  

One chief insight of Habakkuk is that faith can sustain us in the midst of all the fears and frustrations in our hearts as well as the vicissitudes and fates in our worlds. 

The New Testament writers loved Habakkuk and quote from it frequently.  “The righteous shall live by faith(fulness).”  Christ prayed with a similar emotional honesty while in the Garden of Gesthemane.  Under the moonlight, Jesus himself derived strength from God as he approaches the horrors of the cross and death itself. 

How should we live when God is hiding?  Habakkuk starts with this question but ends up asking an additional one-how should live when God stops hiding and goes on the warpath?  

In both cases the answer is the same-the righteous shall live by faith.  

God is not asleep. Christ is not dead.  There is hope even in the bleakest circumstances. God is with us.  We can trust his ultimate plans for the world.  Hopefulness is a virtue.  The best possible response in every life situation is to choose faithfulness.
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