God replies when we pray. Only, on this occasion, Habakkuk finds God’s answer quite unpalatable.

Read: Habakkuk 1: 12-17

One of the things that is quickly discovered when we have a relationship with God is that friendship with God is full of mystery. Some say that God can do as he pleases, and it’s not our place to argue or question. I disagree. There will be things we struggle to understand, and if we are God’s friends we are allowed to question what he does, in order to gain, not answers and understanding, but more trust in God’s goodness and his best intentions for our good.

Habakkuk simply does not get it. How could God sort out the evil of Judah using the evil of Babylon. Two wrongs cannot make a right, as the old saying goes. So, his second Psalm of complaint contains several arguments, that go like this.

Surely you can’t use the Babylonians to sort out Judah’s evil, because:

• You can’t mean to destroy your chosen people
• You are holy…the Babylonians are anything but holy
• Judah are less evil than they are
• Babylon will brag that their god is greater than you…they can’t see that you are at work in the background, making it possible
• If you’re not going to let Judah get away with evil, why are you letting the Babylonians? Will you let them get away with it forever?

This is the mystery that Habakkuk is grappling with. In chapter 2 he gives us some pointers to how friends of God can live with his mysterious ways…we’ll look at that in the next post.

How do you come to terms with the aspects of God’s mystery in action that trouble you or that you simply don’t understand?

Make a list of those things, then think about how you might allow God to give you new understanding as you trust him to be a good God, who cares for people and does things for their good, not their harm.

God replies when we pray. But are we open to his answer being surprising, even shocking?

Read: Habakkuk 1: 5-11

We all have expectations about the way God will answer our prayers. “God has done it this way before”, we tell ourselves, “so he’ll likely do it that way again.”

But God won’t be tied down by our expectations. He could answer Habakkuk’s prayer in myriad ways, but the way he chooses is quite shocking to Habakkuk…it blows his expectations out of the water.  

“Look around at the nations; look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.”

God says he’ll raise up a secular nation from far beyond Judah’s religious world and that they will be the means of God enacting the change of heart that his people need. The problem is the result of bad leadership, so when Babylon invades, the leaders (the problem) will be carried off into exile, while the ordinary people (the sufferers) will be left to reclaim the things that violence and lack of justice has deprived them of.

So, God answers our prayers, often in surprising ways. And the same God is at work and able to work in and through and despite the political power plays of today’s world.

Have you ever had experience of God working in ways that are surprisingly unlikely? How do you feel about the suggestion that God will work through secular institutions and individuals to bring things that are ultimately for everyone’s good?

If we want to enjoy a close relationship with God, sometimes we’ll have to wrestle with God when we just don’t understand what he’s doing (or not doing, in this case).

Read: Habakkuk 1: 1-4

Habakkuk’s name means “to embrace” or “to wrestle” in the original Hebrew. He certainly seems to live up to his name in his relationship with God. In order to enjoy the embrace of a close relationship with God, Habakkuk knows it is necessary to wrestle with some difficult questions about the way God does some things or doesn’t do others.

Phil Moore, in his book “Straight to the Heart of The Minor Prophets” reminds us that, “a relationship with God isn’t first and foremost about the things you believe about him, but about the conversations you enjoy with him.”

Habakkuk certainly speaks how he feels, and means what he prays, with courageous honesty before God. The issue here is about one of the biggest practical and intellectual problems people have with belief in a God of love…the problem of evil.

Habakkuk asks God why it is that he sees all the evil in the world and does…nothing.
The catalogue of evil includes violence, evil deeds, misery, destruction, arguing, fighting, no justice…in short, “ the wicked far outnumber the righteous”.

What’s interesting, to me, is that if, as verse one says, this is a message (the original word could be translated “burden”) that Habakkuk receives from God, then effectively Habakkuk is inspired by God to complain about God. In that sense it is very like the honest language of many of the Psalms.

For example, Psalm 13 begins: “O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way?” Have a look for yourself and see how like Habakkuk’s question it is.

It seems that God wants us to ask these difficult questions, and not pray dishonestly, pretending everything is fine and we’re living victorious lives. He even inspires a prophet to ask a question that has been asked myriad times since.

Do you have difficult questions about God and his ways that you have simply pushed into the dark corners of your mind so you can avoid them? They may be things that cause you to doubt and struggle with your faith, they may seem too painful to bring into the light of day. God wants each of us to have honest and open relationships with him, and longs to brings us closer. Are you prepared to take the risk of sharing these things honestly with God, so that he can increase our trust even if we can’t fully understand?