Habakkuk
Faith and Doubt

Week of Monday, August 5, 2002

When I finished grad school in 1985, the job market for PhDs in theology was horrible, so I was very thankful even to get a job. But it was at a tiny college that paid a pittance, so I moonlighted at a local Presbyterian church for extra income. My job as a part-time pastor was to do home visitation, and although I always felt like my task was a little invasive, I was pleasantly surprised how much people appreciated a home visit from their church, how much I learned, and how much I enjoyed it.

I will always remember my very first home visitation in the summer of 1986. The parishioner, Jan, had just lost her husband, her two sons, her father, an uncle, and a nephew in a single boating accident on a lake in Minnesota. Six people perished in a freak storm on what had been their annual fishing trip. What was I as a pastor supposed to say to Jan? What would you have said as a Christian?

Something like this is what the prophecy of Habakkuk is about, although he laments not a personal, private tragedy but instead a national tragedy that calls into question God's entire plan of salvation for Israel. Scholars call this a “theodicy”, from the two Greek words theos (God) and dike (righteousness). In its briefest form the problem of theodicy is the apparent contradiction of affirming the following three propositions: God is all powerful, God is all loving, and evil exists. That is, if God is all powerful, then He surely has the power to prevent evil, and if He is wholly loving, then it would seem from a human perspective that He would want to end suffering. Nevertheless, horrible suffering still exists. If you are willing to forfeit one of the three statements, then the apparent contradiction is gone; but that is precisely what a Christian refuses to do. We do not deny that God is all powerful or all good, or that evil exists (Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science is an exception on this third point).

Habakkuk stands at the threshold of Judah's demise; her hour is not far off. Like Jonah, his prophecy is not really to anyone, and it is not really a prophecy in the normal sense of that word. Rather, it is more of an autobiographical account of his deep struggle to understand the problem of evil as he was experiencing it. Habakkuk has two questions for Yahweh.

First, he cannot understand why Judah has fallen into such corruption and God seems not to answer or do anything about it. “The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice never prevails” (1:4). In the face of evil and despite his prayers for God to do something, He remains silent, aloof, not answering his prayers. Why does He not intervene? Yahweh answered Habakkuk; but it was not what he expected or wanted to hear. Contrary to outward appearances, God is not a silent and passive spectator. “I am working,” said Yahweh, “I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told” (1:5). That's an understatement, because what Yahweh was about to do was to use the pagan, ruthless Babylonians to destroy His own elect Israel.

That answer led to a second, deeper complexity on the part of Habakkuk. How can God use such a wicked instrument to punish His righteous people? Where is the moral calculus in that? “O Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.” How can Yahweh tolerate these treacherous and cruel Babylonians? Why is He silent when these pagans swallow up His own people who are more righteous (2:12–13)? What, in short, is going on here? Yahweh responds that Babylon will get its due, and thus pronounces five woes upon them (2:6, 9, 12, 15, 19). Nor, of course, do they know that they are His instrument.

At this Habakkuk records one of the most encouraging expressions of faith in all of Scripture. He says that he will stand his ground, he will watch and wait (2:1). In contrast to Babylonian arrogance, Yahweh reminds him that “the just shall live by faith” (2:4). Good enough, Habakkuk responded, but it all made his heart pound and his lips quiver. “Decay crept into my bones and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us” (3:16). Who cannot love such candor, transparency and honesty?

The problem of evil is probably one of the two greatest complexities for a Christian to experience and think about (the other one, in my mind, has to do with the world religions). Habakkuk reminds us of several important truths that have parallels in other parts of Scripture.

Habakkuk reminds us that there will be times when we do not understand everything. Paul reminded us that often we can only see “through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Now we have, at best, a partial and faulty knowledge of things. I think this is why Saint Augustine once remarked that sometimes we must rest “patiently in unknowing.” There are some things that do not admit answers and that we will never understand this side of heaven.

Next, somehow and some way, it is simply true that sometimes God uses something evil, painful or unpleasant—like the invasion of His elect Judah by pagan Babylon—to make and do something good. There are two other key passages that remind us of this Biblical truth. First, Joseph was sold by his own brothers, who really intended to kill him, but when he finally met his brothers again he assured them, “Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). Then, in the New Testament, Paul reminds us that in all things, even things like those that bothered Habakkuk, “God works for the good of those who love him.” Further, and even more importantly, says Paul, nothing can ever separate us from His love (Romans 8:26, 28). Most importantly of all, especially for those of us with such an abiding sense of entitlement, Habakkuk writes that his faith and trust in God do not depend upon a favorable outcome.

Though the fig tree does not bud
       and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
       and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
       and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
       I will be joyful in God my Savior. (3:17–18)

Recall Daniel when he was about to be thrown into a furnace of fire, and his response to King Nebuchadnezzar: God can deliver us, but even if He does not we will worship Him and not your idols (Daniel 3:17–18). In the very same chapter of Acts 12, James is beheaded whereas Peter obtains a miraculous escape. But either outcome, says Habakkuk, should find us exercising faith.

There is so much more to say about this important subject. We might explore how pain is “God's megaphone” (CS Lewis) to grab our attention, how suffering can build character (James 1:2ff), how our present sufferings pale in comparison to our future glory (Romans 8:18), how the Psalms encourage us to bring our tears and emotions to God rather than to suppress them (cf. Psalm 73), or how Jesus Himself is the Suffering Servant who has experienced our every weakness and so encourages us to come to Him boldly “for grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 2:14–18, 4:14–16). But at the end of the day, Habakkuk says it all in just seven words: “The righteous will live by his faith” (2:4).

The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself Copyright ©2002 by Dan Clendenin. All Rights Reserved.