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Have you ever had something happen to you that didn’t seem to be right or just? The prophet Habakkuk found himself in that quandary. Habakkuk questioned God’s justness as looked at Judah and saw how evil seemed to flourish and God appeared to do nothing. Wickedness looked more powerful than righteousness. In addition, God gave Habakkuk the revelation that the Babylonian empire would destroy Jerusalem and carry Judah into captivity as punishment for her wickedness. Habakkuk had difficulties with the fact that God would use such ungodly people to bring judgment on God’s people. To Habakkuk, God was being unjust.
Do you ever look at the world and it seems that evil is triumphant? Does it ever appear to you that things just aren’t fair? You pray to God for answers and the answers don’t seem to come? What do you do when your questions are not fully answered? Hopefully, you can do what Habakkuk did. In Habakkuk 3:17-19, the prophet says,
“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.”(English Standard Version)
Habakkuk makes a decision to place his trust in God. Habakkuk may not be able to understand all of God’s ways, but he will trust in God to do that which is right in the end. Eugene Peterson says it this way: Habakkuk “eventually realizes that the believing-in-God life, the steady trusting-in-God life, is the full life, the only real life. Habakkuk started out exactly where we start out with our puzzled complaints and God-accusations, but he didn’t stay there. He ended up in a world, along with us, where every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” (Eugene Peterson, The Message, NavPress, 2002, pg. 1692)
If you don’t always understand what is going on in the world, you can trust that God is in control. You can trust that He will do His will and that that the outcome of His will is life and joy for His people in Christ. God took a cross and made it the means of forgiveness and eternal life. God can take what seems to be unfair and unjust in your life and turn it into something good if you will place your faith in him. Paul wrote it this way in Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” When you are God’s child, striving to live for Christ, God will bring good into your life no matter what may happen. The key is trusting in our Heavenly Father.
