August 2, 2024

Habakkuk 1.11 (NIV)

“Then they sweep past like the wind and go on – guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”

When you can’t trace God’s hand, trust his heart.*

Habakkuk’s prophecy applies to a specific time and place and people. The Chaldeans had conquered Judah and God was preparing to use wicked Babylon to teach the Chaldeans who’s boss. And Habakkuk is not happy about it. The Babylonians were not much of an improvement over the Chaldeans. What was God thinking??

Our vision is limited to the things that are past and to the events of right now. We see wicked people becoming powerful – in business, in politics, even in religion – and we all but bow down to their gods ourselves. We think nothing can stop them. Not that we think that God couldn’t; we just don’t see him doing anything about it. The truth is, we can’t see what God is arranging and we have no clue who or what he will use to accomplish victory over evil. While God may seem to be “strangely silent and inactive,”* he hears and answers our prayers – just not in the way we think he will.

Today, we see many examples of guilty men whose strength is their god. We don’t have to be prophets like Habakkuk to predict that our society is doomed if God doesn’t intervene. America is not God’s chosen nation but the Church is his Bride and he is orchestrating our rescue. We don’t know what form our deliverance will take but we need to be faithful even when he uses “strange instruments to correct His people.”*

When we realize that the universe is moving toward God’s intended end, and that in history’s great culmination all of His good purposes will be fully realized, we are strengthened to live for Jesus now.*