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While We Wait - Waiting Through Injustice Part 3

  • Writer: Paul Downie
    Paul Downie
  • 4 days ago
  • 24 min read

Habakkuk 3:17-19 NIV 

[17] Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, [18] yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. [19] The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.  

In coastal towns across the world, particularly those with a dangerous coastline, lighthouses were always a critically important landmark. Long before the invention of radar, their piercing beams sliced into the dark and showed boatman where to go, or where not to go, so they would safely reach the shore. The worse the weather and the darker the sky, the more critically important these landmarks became. 


Habakkuk has come to God with a really vexing problem. A bit like Job (although without the suffering – that would come later), his questions were neither theoretical, nor abstract, nor academic. They were of the utmost of importance to both him and his community. 


And they still are now.  


We still live in an unjust world. While humans exist in it, our world will always be unjust. That is a fact. It should not be a surprise at all to us if we can identify with Habakkuk’s complaints. 


But we also need to heed the answers God gave him. They were relevant to Habakkuk then.


They absolutely are relevant to us now. 


Habakkuk ends his book with something we might think is unusual, but at the same time, striking and quite beautiful. 


These verses are a description of his lighthouse, his light through the dark storm, his hope in the long wait for justice. 


And it is glorious. 


Let’s start our examination of these important verses by looking firstly at Habakkuk’s Prayer. 

 

Habakkuk’s Prayer 

Habakkuk 3:2 NIV 

[2]  Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/hab.3.2.NIV)


Once someone has been found guilty and this guilt has been conclusively established, a trial is not over. The court is usually adjourned to allow for background reports and for the lawyers to gather their arguments to determine the sentence to be determined. The prosecution will always press for the harshest possible sentence; the defence will seek to mitigate it. This can take weeks, or even months, depending on the severity of the crime. 


Habakkuk does not even once disagree with the guilty verdict against his people. In fact, he issued it himself (Habakkuk 1:2-4). Neither does he offer any mitigation or arguments in their favour. He doesn’t say that they were good people who just fell I’m with a bad crowd, or blame their parents or their society. None of these are remotely the problem. The people of Judah are guilty. They have sinned. They have strayed. None of the prophets – not one single one – offered any arguments in their favour. 


How could they? There were none! 


So what basis is there for Habakkuk’s prayer to God? 


The first of these is glory. 


Not just in terms of a shining light from God’s presence, but His reputation: a reputation formed through His character and His interventions in their history. 


Habakkuk has heard of what God has done, but he hasn’t yet experienced God doing it, and he wants that experience. 


Does that sound at all familiar to you? 


We also see that he bases his prayer on his nations history with God. We will see more of this as we work our way through this prayer. That is something the Jews often did: they recounted their history and asked God to repeat it. 


For example, Psalm 41 begins like this: 


Psalms 44:1 NIV 

[1] We have heard it with our ears, O God; our ancestors have told us what you did in their days, in days long ago. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.44.1.NIV)


And ends like this: 


Psalms 44:23-26 NIV 

[23] Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever. [24] Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression? [25] We are brought down to the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. [26] Rise up and help us; rescue us because of your unfailing love. 

That is what Habakkuk wants God to do: to remember what He has done before and do it again. 


Does that also sound familiar to you? 


The third basis of Habakkuk’s prayer is very interesting. Faced with the almost annihilation of his race and the utter destruction of their towns and cities, including their Temple, he did not plead for God for relief from a sense of entitlement or right, but because of mercy. He admitted that his people were very much in the wrong. That was not at all in dispute. But He pleaded for God to balance His righteous wrath with mercy. 


He was effectively making his proud people a ‘charity case’. 


But here’s the thing: before God that is precisely what they were and precisely what we are. We do not deserve His grace. We have no right to His love. The intervention we seek in our lives to correct the injustice comes out of a sense of mercy, not justice. 


Perhaps that surprises you. Perhaps you see yourself in the courtroom with God like Job did (Job 13:15). However, nothing could be further from the truth. As Job later discovered, God is far greater than we could ever imagine. A courtroom is a meeting between two parties to discover who is right in law. God is always right. We are always wrong, unless we side with God. That is just how it is. 


The only way God can ever intervene to correct our injustices is by an act of mercy. 


Habakkuk’s prayer is not a legal argument. It is instead a plea for God to help people who have done nothing to deserve it at all. It is a cry for mercy. 


And that cry is based on God's Greatness. 

 

God’s Greatness 

Habakkuk 3:3-12 NIV 

[3] God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens and his praise filled the earth. [4] His splendor was like the sunrise; rays flashed from his hand, where his power was hidden. [5] Plague went before him; pestilence followed his steps. [6] He stood, and shook the earth; he looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains crumbled and the age-old hills collapsed— but he marches on forever. [7] I saw the tents of Cushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish. [8] Were you angry with the rivers, Lord? Was your wrath against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode your horses and your chariots to victory? [9] You uncovered your bow, you called for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers; [10] the mountains saw you and writhed. Torrents of water swept by; the deep roared and lifted its waves on high. [11] Sun and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows, at the lightning of your flashing spear. [12] In wrath you strode through the earth and in anger you threshed the nations. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/hab.3.3-12.NIV)


A number of years ago, we were travelling through the Filipino paradise island of Palawan with our family when we came across a man who was so locally famous that he travelled with a convoy. I wasn’t a fan of his at the time. He was a political leader and I don’t think it’s right for a foreign tourist to have a say on someone else’s politics. However, I have to say that I was impressed by his influence and ‘pull’ over the people who were riding with him. 


That man was former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte: a man who, in the Philippines, was known for his unrelenting crackdown on government corruption and improvements to public education and healthcare, and overseas for his highly illiberal threats to opponents and his links to the slaying of a hundred thousand people involved in the drug trade. 


And we drove passed his convoy. 


There are often encounters that impress us and leave a mark on us. Here we see something that has certainly left a mark on him. 


That Person is God Himself. 


These grand events described in this incredibly stirring passage refer to some of the most significant events in the life of Israel and Judah: 

Habakkuk lists them in breath-taking order to remind himself and his people of just how awesome God is.  


But these events are not just listed to recall history, there are also there as a reminder of their identity. 


They, like us, were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).  


And they, like us, were saved from the terror of slavery (to sin) because of how righteous and holy they were, because that was far from the case. The whole book of Exodus turns in these verses: 


Exodus 2:23-25 NIV 

[23] During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. [24] God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. [25] So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. 

The Israelites were rescued from Egyptian slavery because God was concerned for them. It was an act of grace. 


It was an act of mercy. 


After all, when you look as Habakkuk did at how awesome God is, what else could it be? 


Apart from Habakkuk’s prayer and God’s greatness, we also see in these truly majestic words God’s Judgement. 

 

God’s Judgement 

Habakkuk 3:12-15 NIV 

[12] In wrath you strode through the earth and in anger you threshed the nations. [13] You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one. You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot. [14] With his own spear you pierced his head when his warriors stormed out to scatter us, gloating as though about to devour the wretched who were in hiding. [15] You trampled the sea with your horses, churning the great waters. 

Human justice is not swift. And often it is not justice.  


I remember standing in a courtroom as a man who had stabbed my friend was given a five year sentence for grievous bodily harm. I knew that, if he behaved himself, he would be out in there. He would be young enough to restart his life again. 


Something about that did not seem right. 


I have seen people who have commissioned the most horrible, most disgusting crimes against children from Asia walk away with terrifically light sentences. 


My wife was enraged one day when she saw someone who has committed a serious offence get a comparatively light sentence, for putting a woman through an ordeal from which she might never recover. 


It causes us to cry out ‘Where is the justice?’ 


To which God replies, ‘It’s right here.’ 


Habakkuk was afraid of a mighty foe who seemed unbeatable. But he wasn’t. 


Years previously Jerusalem had been besieged by the Assyrians. This was the result: 


2 Kings 19:35-37 NIV

[35] That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! [36] So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. [37] One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisrok, his sons Adrammelek and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped to the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son succeeded him as king. 

God acted in an uncompromising and unmistakable way to rescue His people. 


And it wasn’t the first time. The history books in the Bible show that time after time after time God intervened in their situation and rescued them from foes that were mightier than them. It was a recurring theme. 


Even when they far from deserved it. 


Habakkuk remembered these interventions. He remembered those incredible and glorious victories. He knew his people had never once deserved it. 


And now with his people facing a serious threat, he wants God to do the same. He wants God to just what He did before.  


And God did. God rescued them in a dramatic and incredible way. 


But seventy years after their dreadful defeat. 


Justice would come. But it would take time. 


And the wait would be painful. 


God’s people were about to face the most painful and humiliating of defeats. In those days, battles were not just one nation against another, they were one god against the other. The Jews were facing an existential threat: not just the loss of thousands of lives and the brutalisation of a generation, but the loss of anyone who was at all capable of leading their nation, not to mention the absolute destruction of their city and its fabled Temple and the loss of anything valuable in that Temple that was useful for the worship of God. 


We have a modern expression for this: we call it ethnic cleansing. We call it genocide. 


Those losses were the most severe that the ancient Jews had faced up until then. 


Habakkuk knew it was coming. God had told him. Yet here he has a vision of God returning in incomparable power and avenging the losses that had been inflicted on his people. 


I want you to see something here. It is so completely important. And it is this: 


When we lose, it does not mean that God is small, it means that His purposes and plan are great. And it is His purpose for to face what we are facing now. Even though we may not see it, even though we may not understand it, God’s purpose is good. It is always good. It might not seem like it is good. It might not feel like it is good. But it is always good. 


And it is this truth – this core, dependable truth – that brings us through the deepest pain of loss and despair to the other side. 


This psalm finishes with words so incredible that they ought to send chills down our spine. Because after Habakkuk’s prayer and God’s greatness and justice, we see Habakkuk’s Commitment. 

 

Habakkuk’s Commitment  

Habakkuk 3:16-19 NIV 

[16] I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. [17] Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, [18] yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. [19] The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights.  

What is it that gets you through hard times?  


I once met a woman whose family were caught up in wars in Ethiopia. What got her through the threats of violence every day was the simple, but thoroughly optimistic saying that ‘this too shall pass’. 


Which it did. For a while. Her and her family escaped to Qatar and then to the UK. 


Then her husband passed away and left her to raise her son on he own.  


Some of us face suffering that takes us almost to limit of our endurance, and often beyond it. We need a reason to face each day knowing full well that it would not be easy. Often what makes suffering worse is not just the reality of it, but the anticipation of it: of knowing that if you put weight on your leg, it will be sore; of knowing that you have to visit a loved one in pain on hospital; of knowing that you have to say ‘Goodbye’ to them in a funeral.  


God had told Habakkuk that He was going to inflict pain on His people that was more severe than anything any of us will ever face. They had been warned about this. God had told them for years that it would happen. 


Isaiah 5:11-16 NIV 

[11] Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine. [12] They have harps and lyres at their banquets, pipes and timbrels and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord, no respect for the work of his hands. [13] Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding; those of high rank will die of hunger and the common people will be parched with thirst. [14] Therefore Death expands its jaws, opening wide its mouth; into it will descend their nobles and masses with all their brawlers and revelers. [15] So people will be brought low and everyone humbled, the eyes of the arrogant humbled. [16] But the Lord Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will be proved holy by his righteous acts. 

Jeremiah 13:19 NIV 

[19] The cities in the Negev will be shut up, and there will be no one to open them. All Judah will be carried into exile, carried completely away. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/jer.13.19.NIV)


In fact, the threat of exile as a punishment for severe disobedience was right there, in black and white, in their law: 


Deuteronomy 28:36-37, 64-67 NIV 

[36] The Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. [37] You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you. 
[64] Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. [65] Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. [66] You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. [67] In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.  

The conversation between God and Habakkuk, then, was a case of Habakkuk asking God why He tolerated the covenant He had made with Israel and Judah being trampled on and treated as if it was worthless, and God showing Habakkuk that this was definitely not the case. 


In order to understand the sheer force of these words, we should recap what happened in this book again. Habakkuk challenged God about the injustice in his land and the paralysis of the law to deal with it. God told Habakkuk that He would send the Babylonians to discipline and punish the citizens of Judah. Habakkuk was appalled and asked God how He could use a nation like Babylon to discipline and punish a more righteous nation like Judah. God told Habakkuk that He would also discipline the Babylonians. 


Then here, in the final chapter, Habakkuk recalled the awesome power of God in delivering His people and creating Israel as a nation. 


Now, faced with seeing that awesome power directed firstly to punishing the Jews, and then to punishing Babylon, we see Habakkuk’s reaction. 


Firstly, we see fear. 


And I get it. I really do. When I see forecasts of Pacific typhoons headed for my in-laws, I feel fear. Of course I do! These are mighty, uncontrollable forces of nature. Only a fool is not afraid of them. 


In Habakkuk’s position, fear is a perfectly normal, perfectly understandable reaction.  


But Habakkuk doesn’t fear the Babylonians. That would be a mistake: 


Proverbs 29:25 NIV 

[25] Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/pro.29.25.NIV)


Isaiah 8:13 NIV 

[13] The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/isa.8.13.NIV)


God warned Habakkuk about the Babylonian invasion, yet Habakkuk did not recoil in fear of them. He was clear about what he thought they could do, but he didn’t cower in front of them. 


No, the fear he expressed here is fear of God: of His power, of His judgement, of what He could do. That is what caused Habakkuk’s knees to give way and his stomach to churn. 


This is a side of God we don’t often talk about in the Western church. We are so used to Him being our friend that we forget who are friend actually is.  


The British royal family like spending time in the Aberdeenshire village of Balmoral in the castle they own there because they are known to the locals. They can mix freely and go about their daily business without concern. But it doesn’t change the fact that they are still the British royal family and they still wield considerable influence. 


Perhaps we have gotten too used to God in a ‘Balmoral’ sense, where He moves among us and we talk about how He loves us and takes care of us, and we have forgotten His power and His glory. Habakkuk is confronted with exactly what God can do, and just like numerous Old Testament figures, he recoils in fear (see Isaiah 6:5 and Ezekiel 1:28 for good examples).

 

Maybe it’s time we remember Who it is we are dealing with, and how much He utterly hates our sin. It would certainly do us no harm. 


A well as fear, we also see fortitude. Habakkuk will wait patiently for the assailants of his people to be brought to divine justice. 


There is a special meaning for the word that Habakkuk uses in Hebrew here. It doesn’t just mean to wait stoically for something to happen. It actually means ‘to rest’ or ‘to settle down’. It’s used when the ark ran aground on Mount Ararat (Genesis 8:4). It’s used again to describe the Sabbath rest (Exodus 20:11; Deuteronomy 5:14). It’s used to describe the result of the victories Joshua won in the Promised Land (Joshua  23:1). 


Think about that for a second: Habakkuk has been told that a deadly enemy is coming to commit genocide against the people of Judah, yet he rests? What would you do in that scenario? Would you not pack your bags and run away as frantically as you could? 


Yet Habakkuk is able to be quiet and rest, despite the enormous threat to both his people and himself. 


How? 


Because of his faith in God. His vision of his God both as the God of their past in their history and their future in their victory gives him the strength, resilience and fortitude to wait on God rescuing God from their present ignominy. 

 

Such is the awesome power of the God in whom Habakkuk believes. 


Apart from fear and fortitude, we also see famine. 


And this famine is all too real: 


Habakkuk 3:17 NIV 

[17] Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls... 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/hab.3.17.NIV)


Figs, grapes, olives, sheep and cattle... these were the main means for the people of Israel and Judah to make a living. Habakkuk is basically saying that he will still trust God even when he and his people have absolutely nothing at all and no means at all of changing that situation. 


To be found in such poverty in Old Testament thinking was the result of a curse:

 

Deuteronomy 28:15-18 NIV 

[15] However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you: [16] You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. [17] Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. [18] The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. 

Deuteronomy 28:33, 38-40 NIV 

[33] A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days.  
[38] You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. [39] You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. [40] You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off.  

Habakkuk said that he would remain faithful to God even when his people were under that level of curse. 


And that is extraordinary. 


Or is it? 


Essentially, what Habakkuk did here is separate God from His blessings. He said he would remain faithful even if all God’s provision and blessings were removed. He showed that he was following God not for what He did, but for who He is.


Given the horrors that the citizens of Judah were about to endure under the Babylonians, that was a necessary thing to do. 


Because, you see, if we worship God only because of what He doss for us, then His blessings become our idol. We worship them, not God. We become like the Israelites who were healed of their snake bites by looking at a bronze snake Moses made (Numbers 21:4-9), but who then worshipped the snake, instead of the God who gave it to them (2 Kings 18:4). 


Habakkuk got this right, where so many of us get it wrong. 


So apart from fear, fortitude and famine, we also see fleet-footedness. 


Habakkuk 3:19 NIV 

[19] The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/hab.3.19.NIV)


Here is where Habakkuk bares his secret once and for all. The secret of how he will make it through the extraordinarily stressful situation he and all his country are about to face is what the NIV translators call ‘the Sovereign Lord’ – a slightly clumsy translation of ‘Jehovah Adonai’: a Hebrew expression that basically means ‘The Lord Jehovah’. It is an exclusive expression: only one God has this title and there only ever will be one. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 


Here Habakkuk states that God is the source of his strength, his sure-footedness and his skilfulness. It was God who would enable him to find secure places for his feet as he struggled with the pain of the invasion. It was God who would get him through it. That is what these verses mean. 


Here, in this passage, we see the greatest secret to surviving any suffering or wait, but particularly those caused by injustice. Habakkuk wrote that we should have a realistic view if God: His glory, His might, His power, His justice, His righteousness, His love. 


We should then wait patiently and quietly for Him to intervene in our cause, setting aside all negativity , complaining and arguing. 


We should separate God from the gifts He gives us and worship God alone.  


This is what enables us to handle the stress and the strain if everyday life when things are far from in our favour. 

 

Conclusion 

Habakkuk 3:16-19 NIV 

[16] I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. [17] Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, [18] yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. [19] The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights. For the director of music. On my stringed instruments. 

Around a year or so before it became common knowledge that the office where I was working was closing, I was given a highly pressurised and unenviable task. 


I was asked to make a PowerPoint presentation look good. That PowerPoint presentation was a series of scenarios on my office to be presented to the board showing how money could be saved. 


One of those scenarios was the complete closure of the office. 


And I was told I could not tell a soul. 


So I worked on that presentation in a meeting room. I let no-one see it but me and the manager who had given it to me. For weeks I went home knowing that my job and the jobs of my colleagues and friends was in the balance. 


But I could not tell anyone. 


I couldn’t even protect myself. If I decided to find another job and leave, it wouldn’t take much of an imagination to figure out why I had been pulled out of my day job to work for hours in a meeting room. 


I just had to do my work, go home, eat my dinner, sleep somehow and then go into work the next day in the knowledge that I could be losing my job, and so could everyone else I worked with. 


I still to this day don’t really know how I managed it. 


So when they broke the news to me that the office was closing, I wasn’t entirely surprised. 


But all of that pales into distant insignificance compared to the news that Habakkuk had been given. 


He came to God with a fully justified complaint about injustice in his land. It was well-founded. The country was in terminal decline. It has been for many years. Everything he said in his complaint was factual and accurate. He exaggerated none of it. 


And God knew. God knew all of it. He had a plan to deal with it. 


He would send a powerful, and sinful, nation against His own people, risking His own reputation – His own glory – so they would be disciplined and punished for their sin. The result of that punishment would be the ultimate fulfilment of every curse in the Abrahamic covenant: the barbarity of a merciless siege, the invasion of every city and town and village, the utter destruction of every building of any significance and the ruin of the Temple. 


It would be ethnic cleansing. It would be genocide. 


But then, God told Habakkuk, Judah’s assailants would not escape. They too would pay the penalty for their horrific sins. 


No wonder Habakkuk’s knees gave way and his heart sank. This was a terrible, awesome vision.   


And then comes Habakkuk’s final response, in Chapter 3. There we see Habakkuk’s prayer, his reflections on the greatness and justice of God and his astonishing commitment to follow God no matter what. 


At the start of this last of three studies on Habakkuk, I reflected on the need for a lighthouse: how they stopped sailors from wrecking their boats when conditions were bad.


Here, at the end of a deeply impressive and highly relevant book, we find verses that are like a lighthouse to us. 


When we find ourselves in any suffering, but particularly in injustice, we need to find a way through it. It’s never easy. But we cannot be guided by our anger, our frustration or our righteous fury or grudge or sense of being hard-done-by.  


These will not do us any good at all. They will achieve no good thing for us. 


Habakkuk gave us a better way. 


He had a high, and realistic, view if God as Sovereign and in charge, yet loving and just and righteous. That is critically important. If we view God as anything less, we will be choosing to make our suffering worse.  


Because of who God is, Habakkuk is able to wait patiently and quietly for God to rescue and avenge his people.  


The tough question we have to ask ourselves is what does our impatience and disquiet say about how we see God? If He is in charge, why are we impatient? 


This, in turn, leads to Habakkuk separating God from His material circumstances; the Giver from the gift, the Provider from the provision. His perception of God is not dependent on what God is doing for him. God is great even if Habakkuk’s situation is not. That separation removes stress from Habakkuk and makes him more resilient to face what any of us would regard as an utterly extraordinary situation. 


He finds his joy in God, not in his circumstances.


Once he has completed these three steps, Habakkuk finds himself calm and able to receive God’s guidance, which makes him fleet-footed and agile in challenging times and places. 


As it says elsewhere in the Bible: 


Psalms 37:23-24 NIV 

[23] The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him; [24] though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. 

Psalms 119:105 NIV 

[105] Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. 

Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV 

[5] Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; [6] in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. 

(Read the full passage at: https://bible.com/bible/111/pro.3.5-6.NIV)


These verses are important, but they are even more important when we are enduring injustice and seeking to put it right. After all, here are many who have nothing at all to do with real, Biblical Christianity and simply don’t understand it, but seek to wear it as a garment over their disgusting behaviour and attitudes to give themselves an air of legitimacy, or to try to manipulate Christians as a block vote to support their cause. 


There are other deeply nefarious people who are more than happy to use any cause as an excuse for anarchy and violence. 


There are still others who are happy to take genuine causes and manipulate them for personal gain. 


That is why we must take great care and act with wisdom. We cannot have the good Name of our Lord, His Gospel or His Church allied to causes that have nothing to do with the cause of love and salvation. The church was never and should never be a political entity.


There should be no such thing as a Christian block vote. Neither should any Christian, at any level, prioritise any political ideal above the cause of the Gospel. 


But at the same time, injustice is always evil and must be fought. It must be fought legally, calmly, peacefully and using the structures and processes our governments have set in place. When they fail, we must do it in prayer. 


All of us know about the fall of the Berlin Wall. What not many will know is that the process of its destruction began in 1982, seven years before, in St Nicholas Church in Leipzig, where just a handful of believers gathered for a Monday night prayer vigil. That prayer meeting gradually grew until tens of thousands of people marched through the city to the church to offer Prayers of Peace. All of this was happening in Communist East Germany. 


The government had neither the resources nor the know-how to deal with such a huge peaceful protest. This quiet act of determined defiance helped lit the flame that brought the Berlin Wall down and the Communist government to its knees. 


Friends, some of us are living in situations that are entirely unjust. And that is deeply painful. There will never be, or should never be, any disagreement about that. 


But we also have to be acutely aware that there are many out there who seek to channel and abuse our pain for their gain. 


Don’t let them.  


If you do, it will only make things worse. 


Habakkuk gave us the blueprint for dealing with the pain and the horror of injustice. It does not include violence, disruption or usurption. 


It does contain quiet, defiant resistance, a focus on God in famine, fortitude in patience, joy in famine and fleet-footed resilience.  


This is not just Habakkuk’s way of dealing with a very thorny issue, it’s God’s. 


And if we understand this, we are already halfway to conquering injustice for good. 


Prayer 

Lord Jesus, injustice is deeply painful. It feels like an attack on me and who I am. I thank You that You know how I feel because You were unjustly treated. You were falsely accused. You did not deserve to die. Help me to gain a new perspective on the injustice I endure from Habakkuk. Amen. 


Questions 

  • Why we Habakkuk so afraid? What made him afraid? 

  • How could Habakkuk rejoice in the Lord despite the prospect of losing so much? What can we learn from this? 

  • How can you be wise and fleet-footed in your situation? 

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