Lessons about Faith from a perplexed prophet (blog post)

Imagine, look around. All you see everywhere is society falling apart. You remember a time, or your parents remember a time when society centred around the worship of God. But those days are long gone. And recent history is one of war and division. You’ve seen nation fall apart.

It’s not too hard to imagine. Perhaps it even feels just like the world we live in. It’s why Habakkuk offers a refreshingly real and relevent Word for us today.

Prophecy written probably around 722BC - after fall of Ninvevah - and after fall of Israel - Northern Kingdom. There is a new world power - Babylon (the Chaldeans) - brutal and ruthless.

The vague memory of the good days Josiah - the great King who brought reform - brought God’s word back to God’s people. - even revival - seem all but gone - but the sun has set. Since then 3 Apostate Kings have reigned who did have led taken Israe down with them. Around all you see is wickedness. Corruption, and threat of war and total destruction.

David Prior describes the scene:

Habakkuk lived at a time when society was shaken by violence. As Judah and Jerusalem had sunk deeper into disobedience towards God and his requirements, so the fabric of national life had begun to come apart at the seams.

2700 years later yet how well the description fits.

Ministry in a time when we see apathy and intollerance from outside the chuch and a subtle but powerful apostacy from within.

Locally we don’t experience physcial war threat. Yet we can identitfy. Spiritual battle in UK is real. Enemy prowls around like a lion, seeking to devour very fabric of society, corrupting moral compass - infecting the church, and even in our own hearts we recognise the daily battle that can leave us in total despair.

Pehaps we are tempted to follow the example of Habakkuks contempories. To weep with Jeremiah, or to pronounce woe and doom and destruction like Zephaniah. I want to urge that Habakkuk offers a more helpful and balanced response.

As I began preparations to preach Habakkuk back in the summer I thought to myself “why oh why did I agree to preach this” (alongside working full time). But Habakkuk has been the most helpful, challenging, and in a strange kind of way, uplifting books I have studied in a long time. It really is a book for the season. I hope in this blog to draw out 6 valuable lessons we can learn from Habakkuks faith.

Faith is Honest

(Habkkuk 1:2-4, 12-13)

Job - Painted over damp plaster because didnt want to face pain of dealing with real problem.

Wonder if sometimes we can be like that in relationship with God and others. Veneer in our prayers, but hide or bury how we real feel. Supress it.

I wonder if we have lost the art of lamenting. Passionate grief.

What I love so much about Habakkuk is he is raw and honest.

Try to imagine his anguish as he cries “How long O Lord”.

Feel his perplexity as he cries:

It’s important to distinguish - this is not the grumblings of a doubtful cynic, whose ears are closed. This is the believing confrontation of a prophet who waits for an answer.

This is the raw heart vulnerability expression of a man who longs for God and His Glory, who is struggling to connect the dots of his theology and his experience, but who knows the God with whom he is wrestling.

2. Faith is intimate

I have many fond memories of family holidays walking in the Lake district. But one of the clearest memories probably isn’t the fondest. Whem my dad led us up a mountain in the midst I remember mum’s anxious shouts, my brothers tears and my own slient uncertainty. We all wanted to turn back (except dad) - yet we didn’t. We followed him through the fog to the top, and he led us out of the fog and safetly back home. I think about why we continued to follow him rather than turning around? It was because despite the fear and uncertainty we trusted his calm voice, map reading, and sense of direction. We knew his character was not wreckless. Despite the screams and tears, and objection, in the end we knew to trust dad.

Habakkuk shows us a similar trust in a God with whom he has an intimate relationship with.

vulnerability requires intimacy. The more we know someone (and trust them), the more open we will be.

SO often a barrier to us enjoying an intimacy with God is that we don’t know Him well enough or don’t believe he knows us.

Habakkuk honest vulnerability with God comes from a deep intimacy.

Habakkuk 1:12 (NIV)

Lord, are you not from everlasting?

My God, my Holy One, you will never die.

In his anguish Habakkuk first reponse it to run to God. And not to God as some distant deity but as an intimate friend. 12 times in this prophecy Habakkuk refers God as “The Lord” - Yahweh - using his person, covenant name.

In verse 12 he cries out MY Holy one. Even in his anguish, in his perplexity, as he wrestles with inner conflict, his life and identity are inseperably connected with the life and identity of His God. He rests not in his understanding of the situation or experience, but in the unchanging chracter and nature of God, and the love he has for his people.

We see this my language of intimacy again in the Word’s of Jesus. Who through the gospel’s makes clear an intimate relationship - a oneness with his Father. Most clearly we see this at the cross as Jesus cries

my God my God why have you forsaken me?

It was in this moment when we see the deep anguish of Jesus as loss of intimacy which he shared with His Father, and at the same time we see where we find the greatest and truest intimacy offered. As Jesus faces seperation, we are bought near. As Jesus faces rejection, we are offered accepted. As Jesus faces emnity, we experience adoption.

If Habakkuk could enjoy intimacy with God, how much more can we! We have a heavenly Father who knows us at our worst, and through Jesus reconciled us to Himself. That we, through faith, united to Jesus might enjoy the intimacy of as access to a perfect Father, as his dearly loved children.

Reflection questions:

What does the way you pray exposes about your view of God?

What might it look like for you to related to God with the raw honesty of Habakkuk this week?

What might it look like in church life if we had this kind of share vulnerable honesty in prayer?

3. Faith is grounded

How easily our experience can effect our sense of reality, especially if prone to anxiety or emotionally sensitive. Our experience can overwhelm us making it hard to see things clearly. In these times it’s vital that we are able to hold onto the truth - in particualr truth about who God is.

If you have ever wired a plug, or open a plug you’ll notice 3 wires. A red/brown live wire. A blue/black nuetral wire, and a yellow/yellow and green earth wire. The earth wire is for electrical grounding. Grounding primarily provides a measure of safety against electric shocks by acting as a safety line to redirect electric current in the event of short circuits (when elecrical current flows through an unintended path - i.e. toward you!). Grounding is like a return path for electric current, taking electricity back to the source.

Why am I talking about plugs and electrical circuits? Because its a helpful picture (I think) if what Habakkuk does. In the face of his experience and anguish. When his faith is facing a short circuit, when world around him seems to have taken an unintented path threatening his safety, how does he not blow up or melt? He grounds himself in the reality of God. He goes back to the source - to who God is, and this becomes the window through which he views the world, and framework through which he wrestles with the chaos around him.

2:12

Are you not from everlasting?

You who are purer eyes than to see evil (13)

Habakkuk ground himself in God’s unchanging character. In God’s holiness and purity.

Its this grounding that is both the cause of and comfort in his anguish. He is struggling to make sense of what he sees around him in light of who God is, yet he also holds on to truth and resolve to trust God and wait.

Habakkuk 2:1 (NIV)

I will stand at my watch

and station myself on the ramparts;

I will look to see what he will say to me,

and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

He is resolute not to be a cynic but a believer. He is resolute to hold onto the true God that he knows, and recognises what he doesnt understand doesnt undermine who God is. So he waits.

In the face of overwhelming circumstances, its vital we ground ourselves in truth - in who God is. Sometimes that means speaking to ourselves, or asking others to speak to us:

“It might feel like world is chaos, but I know God is in control”

might feel like things are falling apart - but I know that God is working all things for my ultimate good

might seem God is distant, but I know that he is as close as he has always been.

It might feel like I can’t come to him but I know that nothing can seperate me from his love.

It might feel like Satan is winning, but I know that Jesus has the victory, and is working his purposes out.

What truth about who God is and what he has done do you need to ground yourself in?

Where do you need to say to God this is who you are - I don’t understand what I’m going through, but I will wait on you.

How do both lament with others but also seek to ground each other in truth?

4. Faith is patient