October 9, 2022
There are so many questions about life that are very difficult to answer. Like why do we say, “I slept through the night like a baby, when everyone knows a baby wakes up every two hours! Another one of those questions that’s hard to answer is, “Who is Habakkuk?” Habakkuk is a lesser known book of the Bible about a minor prophet. Is Habakkuk a person? Or is that what a cat says when they cough up a furball! Ha-a-bak-k-k-kuk.
The difficult to answer question from the book of Habakkuk is, “Why, at times, doesn’t God seem to care or be fair?” Maybe you’ve asked that before. Today we’re looking at the first chapter of Habakkuk. In chapter 1 Habakkuk asks, “How long, O Lord, must I call for help but you do not listen, or I cry out to you, ‘violence,” but you do not save.” In verse 3 Habakkuk asks God, “Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?”
People today ask questions like this. Like, “God, why is it that the evil people seem to proper, but the good people have so many troubles?” Why do I work so hard and never get promoted, but that person who doesn’t work hard but is always flattering the boss gets a raise?” “Why does the bad guy live to be 102, while the wonderful mom with young kids dies of cancer?” Why when someone else prays, God, you answer their prayer immediately, but when I pray you don’t do anything at all? God, it seems like you could do something, but you don’t!
Habakkuk had questions like that. Not just one question you have for God, and then you go back to living your life and following Him. Habakkuk, the prophet, had a head on collision with tragedy. He loved God, he had a deep faith. God had chosen Habakkuk to be a prophet who would speak for Him. But right away, from the start of the book of Habakkuk, the prophet sees the way things are and how they don’t line up with what he believes about God, and it is a very difficult season for him.
And he tells God exactly how he feels! Habakkuk is one of the minor prophets in the Bible. There are 12 minor books in the Bible, of the 12 Minor prophets. They are smaller books, so they are the minor prophets. That means they never played in the majors. They never got the shoe deal or the sports drink endorsement. Of the 12 minor prophets, we know the least about Habakkuk: we don’t know who his parents were or what his first job was.
But here’s what makes Habakkuk stand out among all the prophets, the minors, and the majors: Habakkuk was the only prophet who openly questions God. His job as a prophet is to tell the people what God says and what God wants. But when Habakkuk doesn’t agree with what God says or does, he talks back! He complains, he says, hold on a minute, God! What are you doing?
The prophets didn’t usually question God. Although plenty of other places in the Bible, there is complaining. Lamentations 3:44 says, “God, you have covered yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through.” There’s “Why, O Lord do you stand far off, why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” in Psalm 10. There’s even Jesus on the cross saying, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” Habakkuk, like them, tells God when things don’t seem fair to him at all. Habakkuk’s name, it’s a mystery, what it means. But it is related to the word for embrace, or wrestle. Which kind of sounds like Habakkuk. He’s not afraid to wrestle with God or to embrace Him; to be so close to God that he says exactly what he thinks to Him! Habakkuk teaches us, when you are angry at God, be like Habakkuk and embrace, wrestle with God, because the Lord will always embrace you.,
In chapter 1, verses 3, 4 and 5 Habakkuk asks God, “Why do you make me look at injustice? Why, God, do you tolerate wrong? Justice never prevails.” It’s like you and me looking around and saying, why do people like Vladimir Putin get so powerful and hurt so many people? Why does the drunk driver go out there and kill innocent people? God, I don’t understand this God!
Have you ever thought, if you were God, you would run the world totally different? If we even admit to that now, we might be scared that God will give us flat tires on the way home and a plague of boils! Well Habakkuk and the Psalms, and Jesus and so many others in the Bible, they show us, it’s fine to share whatever’s on your heart with God. It’s fine, and not only is it ok, but it actually can also become a significant part of your faith journey! We grow closer to God when we take our honest questions to Him!
Because when you start a relationship with God, you tend to have that period where it seems like your life changes! You get a spiritual high. You pray and God answers your prayers, you have all these great things happen to you. You go to church, and you feel like the sermon was just for you, in a good way! You turn on the radio in your car, and it’s playing your favorite song! But after a while, you go to church and the sermon doesn’t seem to be for you. You get in your car, and you don’t like the song playing on the radio. You pray to God, and instead of God answering your request, the opposite happens. You get a health issue you never thought you would, or your best friend won’t talk to you. And pretty soon you find yourself in a crisis of faith. Does God still love me? You get angry at God because He isn’t answering your prayer. What do you do when you feel hurt or angry at God? That’s really hard! Habakkuk teaches us when you’re angry at God, embrace Him, tell him how you really feel. And God will always embrace you.
When my kids were infants, they had to stay in the hospital, one for a week, one for five days. That was so HARD! I never thought this would happen! It was lonely, I stayed near the hospital or in the same room. I felt like 99% of parents don’t go through this. But that’s not true. The biggest feeling I had was worry! Will he make it? Why would God let this happen to a little baby? I asked God why?
It’s a mystery why difficult things happen. But there were so many nice people, nurses, and so on. I had been to the neonatal intensive care unit before I had a baby there. Kevin and I were co-pastors at a church and went to visit a baby who was in an incubator. Mom was not there at time. The staff said, you can touch the baby. We thought, AAHH. It was intimidating. The baby was so little! We said a prayer for her.
So, I knew where the neonatal unit was, and I knew I wasn’t the only person who has babies in the ICU. Good news. There was an Amish woman who had a baby there, who told me how her nephew had been a tiny baby in the ICU but grew up to be very big and strong. A highlight was when people of faith came: woman and her granddaughter from the church I served, or a nun who stopped by in the hospital and prayed for us. It was moments when I felt like, hey, God is here, God does care! Everything worked out.
There is no neat answer to wrap up why bad things happen to good people. Life is not a movie or TV show where everything gets fixed by the end. Sometimes life is a horrible mess. It’s right to complain to God. Habakkuk did. But he stuck with God, he embraced Him. He wouldn’t want to live without God. Our faith grows when we go through crises. Maybe a tragedy in life means that we can be a help to someone else who experiences a situation like ours. God suffers when we suffer. Just as Jesus had compassion on people who needed healing.
The thing about the book of Habakkuk is, when you think things are bad, they get much worse! God tells Habakkuk in verses 5 and 6: I am going to do something you would not believe! I am raising up the Babylonians. Here’s what I want you to do when I say, Babylonians: “boo” or “hiss.” Because that’s how the people of God felt about the Babylonians! So ready? God said, “I’m raising up the Babylonians (BOO HISS). The Babylonians! (BOO HISS). They are a feared and dreaded people. Their horses are swifter than leopards. They laugh at fortified cities.
God is going to punish his people for the wrong they have done, by sending the Babylonians! (BOO HISS). Things were bad, and now they will get worse! This is before the Babylonians (BOO HISS) attached and destroyed Jerusalem and took many people in captivity in Babylon.
Habakkuk responds to what God has said with both faith and questions for God. Habakkuk says in verses 12-13: “My God, My Holy one, we will not die!” That’s a statement of faith. Then he says, “You cannot tolerate wrong, God, so why do you tolerate treacherous people?” Habakkuk questions God. “Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” He holds both faith and questions for God.
Next week, we’ll see what happens when things get worse! How do we believe when we’re in the pit?
My challenge for you this week is to be open and honest with God about some of your deepest concerns and frustrations. Take your trouble to God and ask some hard questions. Tell God exactly how you feel!
Habakkuk was a minor prophet. But he was a great example of how to wrestle with and embrace God. Habakkuk never walked away from faith. He had questions for God, doubts about what God was doing. But he also had faith that God was all good and would save. Habakkuk teaches us when we’re angry at God, don’t run away. Wrestle with God, bring your tough questions. Embrace God because God will always embrace you. Amen.
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