Habakkuk cries out to God, protesting what God is going to allow—but he never gives up on who God is. If the God that Habakkuk trusted was like the gods of the nations—gods who could be defeated, gods who could turn against you, gods who never claimed to love their people—none of this would be surprising. What God was allowing seemed shocking because of who God is—a covenant-making God of infinite holiness and love. Habakkuk brings his complaint not in spite of who God is but precisely because of who he believes that God is. Sometimes, when faced with suffering or disappointment or injustice, we’re tempted to question who God is or even if God is.

Sometimes, you ask for something and you get something—but what you get isn’t at all what you expected.

But then again, if you’ve ever pre-ordered your groceries and checked the box that says “Allow Substitutions,” you already know that. When someone else is making the choices, what you get may not be what you ordered. A few very real life examples: Cat food is not the same thing as dog food, stew meat is not the same as ribeye steaks, and chicken nuggets are not interchangeable with pork chops. 

And, once in a while when someone else is in charge of the choices, you get something you didn’t ask for at all. 

A few weeks ago, our family was unpacking our monthly groceries, and we discovered one of the store’s scanners buried in our grocery sack. When I discovered it, I first began thinking about all the things I could do with it that would be legal; then, I began wondering what I could do with it that’s illegal. And then, I decided we’d better take it back to the store before I did something I shouldn’t do. 

We put in the order, but someone else was in charge, and we ended up with something we never asked for at all.

Sometimes, that’s what seems to happen when we cry out to God, especially in those moments when justice tarries and we ask God to change what we see around us. We bring our requests to God. And yet, what we receive in response to our request is nothing like what we actually asked for. We put in our order, but someone else is clearly in charge of what’s actually delivered.

You asked for transformation in your world but every change that happened seemed to run in the wrong direction.

You begged for clarity about the next step you should take in your life but all you got was more confusion.

You prayed for relief from the injustice you saw around you but what came next was another setback.

You put in your order, but nothing that you ordered actually got delivered. 

If you’ve ever felt that way, these verses in the opening chapter in the book of Habakkuk are for you.

Habakkuk is God’s prophet in the kingdom of Judah sometime around the year 605 B.C. He knows that God is infinite and sovereign, holy and just. And yet, he looks around him at the people of Judah—at the very people who are supposed to follow God’s law—and he sees nothing but rebellion and oppression. Even in the temple in Jerusalem, where God reveals his presence among his people, there is injustice. Yet God doesn’t seem to be punishing the rebels and the oppressors. In fact, those that defy God’s law seem to prosper while the righteous suffer. This leaves Habakkuk’s spirit wounded, and he responds by crying out to God, “How long, LORD, must I call for help and you do not listen?” (1:2).

And what happens to Habakkuk is something that happens only rarely, even in the Bible.

Habakkuk receives an instant response. But the answer that Habakkuk receives isn’t the answer he wanted. 

The answer Habakkuk receives is, in fact, so awful that the answer turns out to be worse than the silence. All Habakkuk wanted was a pint of ice cream and somehow what got delivered was turnips and liver.

God’s answer doesn’t cultivate relief; instead, God’s answer brings conflict and anxiety. And so, Habakkuk ends up in the same place where you and I spend so much of our lives: Habakkuk trusts who God is, but he can’t make sense of what God is doing. What Habakkuk does is what God calls you and me to do as well: Habakkuk takes his complaint to the God he trusts, and he turns his anxieties into prayers. 

If you’re new to Christianity, maybe you thought the Bible was a book of simple solutions and easy answers. Or maybe you’re considering Christianity, and you thought the Bible demands blind faith. If that’s you, first off, I’m so glad that you’re here with us, wrestling with these questions. Here’s one of my hopes for you today: I hope you see clearly that the God of the Scriptures is a God who welcomes your questions. There are no easy answers here or simple solutions. There is only a prophet who doesn’t understand what his God is doing but who also recognizes there’s nowhere better to go than to his God. And thus Habakkuk’s faith isn’t blind, it’s refined—refined by his struggle to reconcile the sovereignty of his God and the injustice that he sees in his world. As I read this text, what I learn from Habakkuk’s life is that, in timeswhen justice tarries, I may not understand what comes next, but I can take my complaints to the One who goes first.

The God we worship doesn’t run from our questions. Instead, he meets us inour questions, our complaints, our doubts. As I read this text, I see three truths to hold close in those times when justice tarries: 

1. Even if I knew what comes next, it wouldn’t make my waiting any easier.
2. Even when I can’t comprehend what God is doing, I can trust who God is.
3. Even if I don’t see God’s goodness yet, I will.

1. Even If I Knew What Comes Next, It Wouldn’t Make My Waiting Any Easier (Habakkuk 1:5–11)

“If I only knew what’s coming next, I could rest so much easier.”

“If I knew the future, it would be easier to face what’s coming.” 

“If I only knew what God’s going to do about this situation, I could trust him more.”

Have you ever felt that way—as if knowing more about what’s coming could make us less anxious about it?

But it’s not true, and that’s what Habakkuk learns here.

Remember what Habakkuk cried out to his God: “How long, LORD, must I call for help?”—“Look! Don’t you see all of this injustice and sin among your people? How long until you do something about it, Lord?”

And God answers: “Look among the nations,”—“Yes, Habakkuk, I looked and I saw, now you look and see!”—“observe well and be utterly astounded; for a work is being wrought in your days which you would not believe if it were told!” (1:5).

For a moment, Habakkuk is both delighted and confused.

He’s delighted because God is going to deal with the injustice and iniquity of Judah in some amazing way very soon: “in your days” (1:5).

But he’s also a little confused, because God said, “Look among the nations” (1:5). What would possibly require him to look “among the nations”—among the Gentiles, the non-Jewish peoples of the earth—to solve the problem of the rulers of Judah who care nothing for the poor and who are not devoted to God’s ways?

When God answers his question, Habakkuk discovers that knowing what comes next doesn’t make it any easier to wait: “Look!” the Lord says, “I am raising up the Chaldeans” (1:6). And suddenly, all of Habakkuk’s hope turns to confusion and fear.

“Chaldeans” is another way of describing the Babylonians. What God is saying is that he will bring Babylon to fix the injustice of Judah.

Most of us have no idea how shocking this statement was to Habakkuk.

Suppose we spent the next three days of prayer pleading with God that every member of our church would be led to repent of their sin so that a renewed passion for justice and righteousness dawns in this church. And then, suppose that—after these three days of prayer—God said, “Sure thing! Look, I am answering your prayers. I am sending the Church of Satan over right now to take care of that. The pentagrams and goat’s heads are on the way.”

Your first thought is probably be something like, “That doesn’t even make sense”—and that’s pretty much what Habakkuk thought too. Habakkuk put in his request, but nothing he thought he ordered actually got delivered.

Let’s pause for a moment and understand what’s happening in the world at this time: For more than a century, the Assyrian Empire has been the dominant superpower in the Ancient Near East, but Assyria’s power is unraveling. Around the time that Habakkuk writes these words, the Babylonians have defeat the last remnants of the Assyrian army at Carchemish along the Euphrates River, on the border between modern Turkey and Syria. Now, there is anxiety about whether the Babylonians might turn south, toward Judah, and whether God will prevent the Babylonians from taking Judah and its capital Jerusalem. What God informs Habakkuk here is that, yes, the Babylonians are coming and, no, he won’t prevent the fall of Judah to the Babylonians—and, somehow, this is how God plans to deal with Judah’s injustice.

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