Habakkuk 2:2-20
Waiting for anything can be difficult. I sometimes have a hard time waiting a minute or two for coffee to warm up in the microwave. When I go fishing, I am forced to wait for a bite, often for long periods of time. Life’s ‘waiting room’ can be a frustrating place, especially for us moderns who largely have lost a tolerance for or appreciation of delayed gratification.
Ours is a world of instant oatmeal, instant messages, quick fixes, fast lanes, and turbo taxes. In a culture with little tolerance for the concept of delayed gratification, waiting may not seem a beneficial activity. ‘Patience is a virtue,’ we’ve been taught, but we ask ourselves how biding our time or “spinning our wheels” could possibly enhance our quality of life.
Yet Scripture reveals that waiting can be a good thing. Using the language of spiritual formation, the idea of waiting on God in Habakkuk instills in us a new perspective and opens us up to renewed life before God. The prophet’s words teach us that waiting entails three aspects notes Heath Thomas: “speaking to God, silence before God, and receiving God’s response.”
Waiting on God demands that we first address him in prayer. In his book, ‘Faith Among the Ruins,’ Thomas writes:
“Waiting on God, however, implies actively and deliberately listening for his response. As Habakkuk ‘keeps watch’ to see what God will say, silence is crucial. Prayer involves talking to God, but prayer at its most fundamental level is listening to God. Listening well demands silence, and effective use of silence is an exacting process that is not easy to initiate or maintain in a loud world. But stilling ourselves before the Creator so that we can hear his Word brings us life.”
Waiting on God anticipates his response. God answers prayer. He does so time and again, and he has done so definitively in Jesus Christ. The prophet’s prayers reveal that all is not well in his world. The hope of prayer is that God will make himself available and work his redemption in a broken world. Thomas underscores the importance of recognizing we are broken, when he writes, “If we live as though creation does not groan (Rom. 8), we devalue the hurt and tears of the world. Such devaluation prevents us from crying out to God that his Kingdom may come, and his will be done in this earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10)”
Yes, it is hard to wait on God. But Habakkuk reminds us that waiting on God is not an empty hope – not a hope against hope or a vague yearning for a resolution that may or may not actually come – because we know that God will act. Habakkuk knew what God had said concerning his people. Consequently, he was able to wait on God with an authentic, expectant hope.
And God did answer. Babylonian tyranny could not survive. Yes, God sent the Babylonians to invade Judah in the last days of the 7th century BC; these ruthless pagans were God’s instrument of punishment for his own rebellious people (1:5-11). But after judgment God would restore his people when they repented of their sin and turned back to him (2:2-20).
Habakkuk waited upon God with a genuine, ‘pregnant hope.’ Waiting with hope is based upon a certainty that God has spoken and will act. Isaiah expresses it this way: “But those who wait for God shall renew their strength. They shall go up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not grow weary; they shall walk and not be faint” (Isa. 40:31). Habakkuk simply says, “the righteous one will live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4).
Join us this Sunday as we note two possible ways of life: the way of unbelief and the way of faith. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes,
“The truth stated is that there are only two possible attitudes to life in this world: that of faith and that of unbelief. Either we view our lives in terms of our belief in God, and the conclusions which we are entitled to draw from that; or our outlook is based upon a rejection of God and the corresponding denials. We may either ‘withdraw’ ourselves from the way of faith in God, or else we may live by faith in God.”
Will you live by faith? See You Sunday,
Waiting in Faith,
Pastor Wayne
Bình luận