Recharge Bible Study: Habakkuk (Part Two)

THE FULL MONTY: Habakkuk 2–3 To read if you have time to take in the wider context.

THE CONTINENTAL OPTION: Habakkuk 3:17–19 To read if you want the core of the story.

ONE SHOT ESPRESSO: Habakkuk 3:18 ‘Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.’

In the middle of the night, on the deserted streets of Cologne, the sound of ringing came from a telephone box. It rang and rang, but no one was there to pick up. That phone box was empty, unlike the one where I was standing in Leamington Spa. I punched the long string of numbers in again, from memory now, as I had dialled it over and over for the past 20 minutes. No answer again. This was attempt 22. I asked myself: how many attempts are considered polite? How many attempts before it’s considered nagging? This was in the dark ages, way back before mobile phones, emails and instant messaging. The only way I could arrange to talk to my long distance and longsuffering girlfriend again was to send an airmail letter suggesting a new ‘phone box date’. That would take days. I dialled again…

What do we do when people we are relying on don’t do what we hope or expect? How do we go on trusting when nobody picks up the phone? And what about when it’s God we’re trying to get hold of? The prophet Habakkuk can relate to the problem of unpredictability. His problem was more acute because it wasn’t just a dodgy phone connection but the unpredictability of God himself. We saw last month that God was unequivocal in stating that what he was going to do in sending the Babylonian nation to punish Israel was going to be unbelievable. So how do you keep trusting a God who doesn’t deliver what we expect of him and instead does the unexpected? As we look at the second half of Habakkuk we see God’s final response to his prophet and the powerful prayer of a true worshipper. We will see how timing is everything when learning to trust an unpredictable God.

Look forward

As I stood shivering in that phone box in Leamington listening to a phone ringing in Cologne, all sorts of thoughts were running through my mind. The idea that I wasn’t going to get to talk to my love was frustrating, but the bigger problem was that I had no way of finding out what was happening. In our always-on-instantcommunication culture, waiting for anything is increasingly difficult. But that is precisely what God asks Habakkuk to do in response to his complaint to God:

‘Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay’ (Habakkuk 2:2–3).

God asks Habakkuk not to make snap judgements about the justice of using Babylon to punish the Jews for their corruption. He asks his prophet to take the long view. He is to write down the prophecy for posterity, as Habakkuk himself may not live to see its fulfilment but a future generation will. God asks Habakkuk to trust him that in the future this intervention will make sense. Seeing our current circumstances in light of God’s future is vital for helping ourselves and our young people love a God who is consistently unpredictable.

Imagine that you had never seen Finding Nemo, and you were given a single frame of the film and asked to guess the storyline. In this single image a tiny orange clownfish is talking to a huge shark. You can marvel at the colours, at the amazing graphic skill the digital artists have achieved and the strange posture of a hunter communicating with his prey. But you couldn’t know whether this is the end of the film or the beginning. You couldn’t tell whether the shark is about to eat the clownfish, or if the clownfish has managed to talk down his aggressor. There is certainly no way of telling that the shark is a jolly aspiring vegetarian who is deeply moved by the clownfish’s story of loss and determination. One picture cannot possibly give enough background information for us to guess what happens next.

Compared to the eternal purposes of God, even a decade of our lives is like that freezeframe in a movie. Of course, God can zoom in and know every miniscule detail of our daily lives, but we are incapable of zooming out to see our lives with the advantage of distance, wider context or retrospect. Even if we apply ourselves to try and get a sense of the height and breadth of all that is going on in the world, from our personal relational history to the grand sweep of international politics, it is still very difficult for us to make full sense of God’s grand design for the universe. So, frankly, we should not be surprised that God surprises us. We are so limited in our understanding of the context of what God is doing, that although we may jump to all sorts of conclusions, unless he tells us his purposes we are really just working blind. Without knowing the future, we must be slow to despair when faced with the difficult circumstances and limited information before us.

Look back

Having heard God’s response to his complaints, Habakkuk turns to song: ‘Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy’ (Habakkuk 3:2).

Habakkuk offers a sung prayer up to God that sets his current situation in the context of God’s past faithfulness to his people. He lists the things he remembers about how God has acted in Israel’s history. Habakkuk came to see – and in the end was satisfied by – what he saw of God’s interaction with his world.

Looking back reminds us of God’s character and his power. In chapter three, we see Habakkuk spending time reviewing this as he recounts God’s rescue of his people from Egyptian tyranny. He remembers the details of how the soldiers, with their horses, arrows and chariots, were defeated in the waters of the Red Sea. He remembers how God came from Mount Paran to rescue his people (Deuteronomy 33:2). We get a description of how God’s arrival at that time must have appeared to bystanders. His splendour was like the rising sun. Habakkuk remembers a pillar of fire going ahead of his people. He remembers the ten plagues, which preceded God’s rescue like motorcycle outriders preceding a royal cavalcade. He focuses on the stories where God took control of the natural world to defeat a seemingly invincible enemy, and this gives him confidence in the God who held the future in his hands.

Looking back at history helps Habakkuk trust in God. If God did not turn a deaf ear to his people in the past, he can be relied upon now. Although the world around him is changing, Habakkuk remembers that God’s compassion, and power and impeccable character and timing have been the same for centuries past, and he has no reason to change now. In the same way, if we continually remind ourselves and our young people of God’s faithfulness to his people throughout scripture, history and in our own experience, we will grow in our ability to trust God however unpredictable he is or however our lives turn out.

Look around

Habakkuk’s final words of prayer are some of the most challenging and beautiful in all of scripture:

‘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 sheepfold and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights’ (Habakkuk 3:17–19).

Habakkuk, because he is waiting for God’s promised future and reminded of God’s faithfulness, is able to look around at his current dire circumstances and still offer praise to God. Habakkuk offers God unconditional worship. Win or lose, in suffering or pleasure, Habakkuk commits himself to the praise of God. This is not some strange stoicism but rather a willingness to trust that God will finally work things out. This is not just the crazy positivity of a hopeless optimist – like that of Sonny, a young hotelier in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, who promises his guests that, ‘Everything will be all right in the end… If it’s not all right, then it’s not yet the end.’ Instead, this is a firm trust in the character of God and his ultimate rule over the universe.

True worship is about living in the ups and downs of the present, knowing that God is in control whichever way things go. Habakkuk knew this. In his final prayer he models a type of worship that runs absolutely counter to the consumer mentality that infects us all. In one of the darkest points in Israel’s history, in the middle of disaster, unsure of what will happen in the future, Habakkuk composes an inspirational song of praise that expresses his intention to hold on to an unshakable faith, whatever surprises and shocks God may have in store for him. If you and I can pray like this, we will have learnt how to worship a God who is consistently unpredictable.

So we have come full circle. Habakkuk’s prophecy started with a complaint about God’s governance of the universe and ends with a commitment to worship the God who is king over all things. My prayer is that these reflections on Habakkuk’s powerful little book will help you learn to love and trust our great and unpredictable God.