When God seems Quiet

Habakkuk 1

Habakkuk 1:1–4 NRSV

The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw. O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous— therefore judgment comes forth perverted.

We hear again the words from our first reading, from the book of Habakkuk. Now Habakkuk is one of those books that you likely don’t spend a great deal of time dwelling on most days. Some might even shrug their shoulders and ask if that’s even actually a book in the Bible. And the answer is most definitely yes, it is. But because we hear about it so often, it’s important for us to spend a little time with it when we get the opportunity.

Timeline

Now, Habakkuk himself was a prophet of Israel around 600 years before Christ was born.

To put that into perspective time wise for us, if we looked back 600 years ago in our own country’s history… it would be 1422. There are no white settlers in the americas… except perhaps some vikings, maybe. But 1422, it’s still another 70 years before the native tribes of the Bahamas would see the white sails and red crosses of Columbus’s ships. It’s nearly 200 years before Jamestown would be founded in 1607. George Washington being born in 1732 would be the almost the 300 year midway point between our present age and 600 years ago.

600 years is a LONG time before Christ. And yet, scholars believe the great Exodus story where the people of Israel escaped Pharaoh’s grasp… most scholars believe that happened in 1446BC which would have been over 800 years BEFORE Habakkuk!

So from the Exodus of the people of Israel being led by Moses out of Egypt until the time of Christ… this story of Habakkuk falls somewhere roughly just past the halfway point on the timeline.

How Long

Now why is all of this important? Because it gives us as readers some perspective to work from for the questions that Habakkuk raises. Hear again his opening question to God:

“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not listen?”

Habakkuk’s question here is asked both from his own perspective and the perspective of Israel as a whole. While the prophet himself is seeking God’s answer, so too is Israel.

And what is the concern?

“O Lord, how lon gshall I cry for help and you will not listen?

Or cry to you “violence!” and you will not save?

Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble?

Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.

So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails.

The wicked surround the righteous—therefore judgement comes forth perverted.”

Unlike most other prophets of the Old Testament whose words warn God’s Chosen People to turn from their evil ways or else God will come and smite them… Habakkuk has a different audience and a different intent.

Habakkuk isn’t speaking to the people of Israel… he’s not warning the peoples… instead his audience is God, Godself. He’s speaking to God here… He’s pleading with God here.

And what is he pleading about? This is what I think is particularly important for our own age. Habakkuk’s concern is about God’s control over human affairs—but rather than having a concern about how and when God intervenes with judgement…Habakkuk is deeply distressed with the times when God does not make God’s control of creation apparent.

In other words, Habakkuk and the people of Israel are having a spiritual crisis because it seems like God is indifferent to what’s been going on in their world. That’s a challenging word and worry to work from… God’s indifference toward the people who are supposed to be God’s chosen.

“Lord, there are bad things happening in the world and it seems like the only people getting ahead in life are those who lie, cheat, and steal their way to the top of the food chain.”

And this isn’t an issue that just suddenly popped up overnight for the people of Israel… it’s something that has been eating away at them for generations by this point.

What happened to those good old days when God crashed the Red Sea in upon Pharaoh’s army? Or even when our ancestors started complaining against you in the desert and you sent vipers to kill them as punishment? What happened to the God that had His hand in the day-to-day business of our kingdom and protected us and corrected us? What happened to the God who led our people with a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night? What happened to you, God, because you have seemed quiet for too long.

A Quiet God

I don’t know about you, but I appreciate this question from Habakkuk. In the midst of a Testament filled with instance after instance of God’s activity in the world, here is this passage that speaks to the frustration of when God seems to be quiet.

Perhaps you have experienced times in your life where you wished God’s activity was a bit easier to see. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that pillar of fire to follow in those moments of darkness when you don’t know which path to take otherwise. And at times, wouldn’t even be nice if God would send some correction our way, just to let us know when we’ve strayed off the path? Maybe not poisonous serpents… but some sign that would tell us to turn around when possible… that we’re straying too far this way or that? Wouldn’t it be nice?

Or that when the storms of life come upon us that we would SEE the waters parted and pushed to the sides and that we could pass through KNOWING that God is making the way open before us?

But a quiet God… now that’s a challenge. And I don’t know about you, but I know I certainly have experienced times in my life where God has seemed quiet. Times when I have turned in a circle trying to see where God might be active in my life and I just couldn’t see it.

And its not necessarily just in the bad times… it can be in the average or good times of life too. But in any time of life when we feel like God is just being quiet… it can truly be a challenge.

And perhaps that’s why I appreciate this plea from Habakkuk… because the frustration of God being quiet isn’t just something that occurs on occasion in the 21st century. Here’s this prophet from 2,600 years ago, again, a PROPHET of ISRAEL, who is wrestling with the frustration of God being quiet… of God being indifferent… of God either not watching over the people of Israel or perhaps even worse God choosing to NOT intercede and make things better compared to the good old days when it was easy to just look up and see that pillar of fire guiding us forward.

I appreciate the prophet’s voice because sometimes I too want to see God more actively in life. There are times where it has been VERY obvious to me that God is present… and yet there are those quiet times as well.

What to Do During the Quiet?

So what to do when God seems quiet?

Well the question that I think we really want to have answered is how do we MAKE God show up in a way that we want God to act. When the storm is overwhelming, how do we get God to step in and say, “Peace, be still?” That’s what we want to know. Sometimes it works… sometimes we feel like we’re left in the middle of the hurricane and the winds keep blowing against us while the waters rise and rise.

And it can be tempting to give up and walk away on God in those moments when God seems quiet. And again, I think this is why I appreciate hearing Habakkuk’s wrestlings.

After Habakkuk goes through his list of frustrations and complaints… after he speaks his peace about God seeming to be indifferent to the plight of Israel, Habakkuk doesn’t say “God, if you don’t act with 48 hours, I’m giving up.” Instead, we get these words from the beginning of chapter 2:

Habakkuk 2:1 NRSV

I will stand at my watchpost, and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.

In a time when Habakkuk is struggling with not being able to see God’s activity and when God seems all too quiet… Habakkuk says he will keep watch and he will listen to hear what God says.

And again, he actually SAYS this. And I think it is as important for us to hear it as it was for Habakkuk to say it… that when God seemed quiet that he was going to intentionally look and listen for signs of God’s response. And there is this hope from Habakkuk that even as he is frustrated that it seems like God is quiet and allow injustices to occur… he still trusts that God is a “good” and “just” God and that ultimately God will not be indifferent nor quiet.

The example that Habakkuk sets for us in those quiet times of God is that we shall persevere in hope, waiting with confidence that ultimately God will be God. To know that we have the promises of who God is and we trust that God -will- fulfill those promises even if things seem too quiet from our perspectives.

Because while we might not be living through a time where we can look up and see God as a pillar of smoke or fire in the sky leading us forward… we know that God has been faithful in the past.

And, truthfully, we don’t even need to look back that far. There are times in your life and in mine that we can look back and say, “You know, God got me through that time or this time. I don’t know how else I could have made it but for the grace of God.” And we can use those times where we saw God’s activity fulfilled to help us through the times where we are challenged to see God present in the here and now.

Throughout the writings from Habakkuk, we hear his frustration and we get to see God’s answers… not just once but Habakkuk moves from frustration with what he perceives as God’s seeming indifference, to praise for the future of God’s fulfillment of promise. But realize… this isn’t a back and forth conversation that happens overnight either. Based on the hints within the text, scholars believe that Habakkuk’s writings potentially take place over the course of a decade or more.

The Quiet is Hard, but God IS faithful

The short book of Habakkuk gives us permission to wrestle with the times that God seems quiet in our own lives. It reminds us that the people of Israel, the very people who understood themselves to be the Chosen People of God, that they too struggled at times with the quietness of God from their perspective. And not for just for a few short years of one life time but even over the course of multiple generations.

And yet, even as we hear this wrestling and are given permission to wrestle as well, even as we hear that it’s ok to ask God “Why is the world the way it is?!” just like Habakkuk did… we also are reminded that God is ultimately faithful.

We hear that even though we are living at times in the inbetween of having received the promises of God but not yet seeing them fully realized, that we might have confidence that God WILL fulfill that which God said shall be done.

From the Noah and the Ark, to the Exoxus, to the return of Israel from Babylonian Captivity, to the ministry and life, suffering and death, resurrection and new life of Jesus Christ all the way to the times in our own life where we can look back and see God walking beside us… God is faithful. We know this.

And so even though the quiet times might be hard… even though you might find those quiet times disheartening and even anxiety inducing, know that God is not indifferent to the world. God is not indifferent to to your family. God is not indifferent to you.

God answers our pleas. And God comes through. With God, there is never too late. And for this, we can rejoice as Habakkuk also found reason to rejoice. Hear now the final words of the Book, the note upon which the ancient prophet ends his words:

Habakkuk 3:17–19 NRSV

Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights. To the leader: with stringed instruments.