August 21, 2025 - Habakkuk 1-3

Habakkuk is one of my favorite prophets, not because of his circumstances (Jerusalem was falling and being burned right before his eyes), but because of his honest questioning of and wrestling with God and his ultimate discovery.  He thought God was blind to what was going on or, maybe even worse, that God was indifferent or just didn't care.  His first question to God:  “Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong?” (1:3)  The prophet asks, again:  “Why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallow up the man more righteous than he?” (1:13)

Habakkuk took a stand at his watch post and on the tower, and he waited to see how the Lord would answer him (2:1).  The Lord encouraged him to wait for his answer, and even if it seemed slow in coming, to continue to wait; indeed, the answer would come (2:3).  And, of course, the prophet shows his trust in the Lord in that wonderful testimony at the end of the book:  “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.  God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places” (3:17-19).

What though no flow’rs the fig-tree clothe,

though vines their fruit deny,

the labour of the olive fail,

and fields no meat supply?

Yet in the Lord will I be glad,

and glory in his love;

in him I’ll joy, who will the God

of my salvation prove.

God is the treasure of my soul,

the source of lasting joy;

a joy which want shall not impair,

nor death itself destroy.   -- John Logan (1796)