"Can someone open your Bible to Habakkuk chapter 2 verses...." says a Pastor while delivering a Sunday service sermon. There is a long pause in the hall before one believer reads it out loud.
Ever wondered why it is difficult for easy access to books like Habakkuk and of other minor prophets? It's because seldom comprehensive messages are heard from these books on a regular church meeting and seldom do we refer to these passages on a frequent note.
But I would like to bring out certain aspects of Habakkuk, infact complaints raised by him before the Lord which I find to be very much applicable to us as Christians.
The queries he is making is quite similar to what many of us make in our day to day christian lives.
The first complaint was why God hadn't intervened or not responded even after seeing the violence and injustice prevalent in Habakkuk's country that was causing the destruction of his people.
The second complaint was why the Lord allowed an ungodly and wicked nation like Babylon to punish Judah.
The Lord answers him, but notice how the attitude of Habakkuk changes after he gets the response. His doubts and complaints pave the way to an enlightenment. He understands the fact that God is still sovereign and he has not forgotten his people. All of his actions are justified.
In our day to day christian living, we often are faced with such doubts and queries- Why did God do this? Why couldn't God do that? so on and so forth that we start to grumble and fade away from his presence. But we should always be remindful of the fact that the God who breathed life into us will be able to lead us till our last breath provided that we seek him unconditionally. He always knows what he is doing, because his thoughts are far higher than our thoughts.
If you look at the picture shown above, the knots and the stitches seems so misaligned and untidy, but it is only in preparation to produce a beautiful embroidery on the other side. This reminds me of the famous quote by Corrie Ten Boom,
Hab 2:4 says 'the just shall live by faith' which was used by Hebrews author as we can see in Heb 10:38.
Habakkuk's complaints transforms into a song of praise upon hearing the Lord. Similarly we should stop complaining and acknowledge God's splendour and decide to trust in the Lord no matter what come our way.
At the end, Habakkuk closes with declaring that he will rejoice in the Lord, the God of his salvation because he is his strength and enables him to walk on high places. That's exactly the assurance we will have if we encounter a response from God as ultimately it is God on the winning side.
