Abstract
We often do not know how to pray, especially when we are faced with overwhelming questions, blatant injustice or likely disaster. The book of Habakkuk can profitably be seen as a prayer guide, especially for such times. As we draw alongside Habakkuk through the twists and turns of his prayer journey we find a model to inspire our own.
How do we pray when we do not know what to pray for? What can we say if we are in the midst of a confusing mess? And how do we embrace and keep a hold on faith when we are on the edge of an uncertain and difficult future? The little Old Testament book of Habakkuk sets out a prayer journey that encompasses movement through some difficult emotions, reflective pauses and inspiring vision towards hope on a grand scale – despite deepening chaos all around. The elusive quality of faith is rediscovered and stretched as God is questioned, shouted at, waited for and finally trusted. Although the journey is demanding, it is doable. And the hints are broad that we – any of us – can profit from joining Habakkuk as a guide to our own prayer.
Beginning to pray
A common misconception is that we should know the end of our prayer quest before its beginning, as if prayer is a simple transaction like a purchase. Sometimes our inability to meet our own demand to formulate a proper solution-oriented prayer blocks us from praying at all. It may be a relief to notice that Habakkuk simply begins where he is – in the middle of the mess.
He acts just as a young child anywhere in the world acts when he lets out his most basic cries of “How long?” and “Why?” as he might do to a trusted parent (Hab 1:2,3). In unstudied simplicity, he unwittingly takes the place that Jesus said is essential for entering the kingdom (Matt 18:3; cf Ps 131). We discover that this seems to be the same place as he and we enter genuine prayer.
However, Habakkuk’s entry into prayer breaks all the rules of polite etiquette; in fact, it is the kind of angry outburst that we might normally consider rude – especially when it is addressed to a higher ranking person. Now, there are certainly times for coming gently into God’s presence, for first contemplating his attributes and taking time to venerate him properly (e.g., Ps 48 and Matt 6:9,10). But Habakkuk is in a crisis and he is in no mood for niceties. Yet he receives no rebuke for beginning in this way.
Protesting
His heart-cry is “It’s not right! It’s not fair!” His first protest is addressed to God. Although there are human causes of Habakkuk’s problems, and these are difficult enough to deal with, God is involved in this too! Habakkuk takes this matter directly to the highest authority, rather than merely to a human court. He assumes that God knows, that God cannot accept what is blatantly wrong and that God has power to act. However, right now God is not acting! He is not putting a stop to this suffering, and instead seems to be tolerating the wrong (Hab 1:2-4).
It seems that Habakkuk has cried out before (v.2), but had no evidence that God was listening to him. Perhaps this time his prayer is more gut-felt and more aware of the extent and gravity of the problem. He is angered by those who act in violence and show outright injustice against the righteous. He is not only appalled by the suffering they inflict, but by the obvious incompatibility between their actions and their supposed knowledge of God’s law. It is precisely in this society of “God’s people” that justice should shine! But their contempt for the law has effectively disempowered the law from doing its job. Now the reputation of the law, and therefore of the God who gave this people the law, is at stake. This time God breaks the silence and answers (Hab 1:5-11).
Being stretched
Habakkuk is told to look up and out, beyond the boundaries of his own small world. God’s concern has, indeed, been aroused. But his thinking and acting are on a larger canvas. However, the most difficult part in hearing God’s answer is that it challenges some of Habakkuk’s most fundamental assumptions.
Habakkuk discovers that his plea for God to put a stop to the injustice among his own people has, in fact, been heard. But God’s intended method of acting is startling. He intends to bring in outsiders who are far more evil than those who have aroused Habakkuk’s anger. What is more, Habakkuk’s assumption that God associates with his own people and is against their enemies is overturned. Now God proposes to act with their arch-enemy!
If there is any doubt about whether God knows the true nature of these enemy people, it is quickly dispelled. Their characteristics are described in chilling detail – they are fierce, violent, strong, swift, derisive and utterly ruthless. In fact, they honour and worship no one but themselves.
More Protesting
Habakkuk now has a new and more serious problem. God is not acting in character – at least, not according to Habakkuk’s understanding. The incongruity of Israelites acting so blatantly against their own law (and their own God) seems to be overshadowed by this new incongruity: God, the Holy One, is actively calling and using utterly evil pagans to punish his own people who are not as bad as the pagans are.
As before, Habakkuk responds candidly, showing both his reasoning and his emotions. He rehearses what he knows of the character of God, and what he knows of the character of these Babylonians. There is nothing in common. Can’t God see with the wisdom of an eternal perspective? Hasn’t he the right, as creator, to speak out when his creatures go wrong and need to hear him? Isn’t God pure and incapable of being tainted by evil? Aren’t the Babylonians utterly cruel in their treatment of other peoples? Aren’t they totally idolatrous in their self-serving worship? Aren’t they blasphemous in their well-entrenched arrogance?
Habakkuk is in shock. Once again he is thinking, “It’s not right! It’s not fair!” Can God really act in this way?
A brick wall
At this point, Habakkuk could be tempted to give up on God – or to give up trying to have a conversation with him. This is the crisis point, an apparent brick wall in the journey of prayer. But what he chooses to do in this crisis is of utmost importance to what will happen through and beyond the crisis. At its simplest, it seems that he will have to decide which direction he will now face.
Will he face the God he no longer understands?
Or will he turn away?
Will he risk having to face more of these difficult and painful conversations?
Or will he turn his attention inward, to ponder his own thoughts and feelings, or outward, to air his grievances against God to others?
Will he remain engaged in this relationship?
Or will he try to forget the whole interaction and quietly let the relationship die?
Could there be a middle way for Habakkuk? One where he still retains his orthodox beliefs about God but detaches from God in personal areas of challenge? Could he then retain his status in the community as a God-follower, even as a prophet, without the turmoil of involvement at such an intimate and emotive level? But that path was tried by another – a fellow prophet – and it failed. Jonah could still recite his beliefs about God when asked (Jon 1:9) but his decision to turn away from God only produced catastrophe for many and greater distress for himself (Jon 1:11,12; 2:2).
Habakkuk makes his momentous decision to stand and watch (Hab 2:1). He will face God and wait. He will not disengage or turn away or wallow in self-pity or complain to others. He holds on to the thread of hope he knows, and risks abandoning himself to the one whom he expects to be faithful, despite his incomprehensible ways. Called to be God’s prophet, Habakkuk is utterly dependent on God to speak. He has no indication of how long he will need to wait, but he will stay the course until an answer comes.
Breakthrough
The scope of the divine response, when it comes, is far wider than what Habakkuk can possibly expect. This is no mere private tête-à-tête. These words must be written down and given wide distribution (Hab 2:2). The requirement to inscribe them on tablets has an unmistakable association with those other divine words of profound and universal importance given to Moses on the holy mount. And rabbis have since recognized that this message given to Habakkuk encapsulates the heart of all other holy law. It certainly is worth waiting for, as its truth will triumph through the corridors of time.
The message comes in two parts (Hab 2:4): it first answers Habakkuk’s concerns about the evildoers, then it addresses his concerns about how he and others can survive in this difficult situation.
The Babylonians are grouped together as “he”, and then summarily dismissed. “He” is puffed up and his desires are not upright. God has seen and known. That kind of person and that kind of motivation, even among the Israelites, will go nowhere. There is no need, at the moment, to elaborate. They are not included in the group that will last, those that will live.
The other group is characterized by faith or faithfulness. They cling, even if by a thread, to the One whose faithfulness they trust. This is the group that will not only survive, but live – really live! Long after the air has gone out of the puffed-up ones, and their schemes have fallen flat, these people of faith will stand and still have energy to go on. This is how Habakkuk and all who wish to join him can face the future in hope.
But what about the baddies?
From the perspective of life held in settled trust it is now possible to observe the mistakes of the evildoers, with the help of God’s lens, and the consequences that inevitably follow.
Their overarching problem is arrogance (Hab 2:4,5), and this is shown in a number of ways. They may put on a show of greatness through drinking or accumulating possessions or building a wide power-base, but inside they are restless and unsatisfied. Their props fail and in the end bring them to disgrace.
Their mistakes are named in five categories. The person who acts in any of these ways is condemned through the use of the strongest term possible: “Woe to him!” (Hab 2:6,9,12,15,19). No one will ultimately be allowed to get away with this kind of behaviour. In the end it will be the Lord and his glory that silences all other grandiose pretensions (Hab 2:14,20).
Woe to those who do not respect boundaries and steal from others!
They will be plundered.
Woe to those who build their own futures by trampling on others unjustly!
Their deeds will cry out against them.
Woe to those who get their own way through bloodshed and crime!
They will end up with nothing.
Woe to those who gloat over the shame of others!
They will be exposed.
Woe to those who attribute worth to an idol!
They will be left with lifelessness.
Using the Imagination to Renew Faith
It is clear that the only healthy path into the future is the path of faith. But right now Habakkuk’s faith is weak. He knows it needs to be stirred into something that is more alive than it is at the moment. So he prays for renewal (Hab 3:1,2), and then uses his imagination to picture what he has heard of God’s awesome actions in the past. He now sees them as if they are happening in the present. The impact is personal, vivid and powerfully engaging.
Habakkuk pictures God, in all his glory, leading the procession of his people up from the south (Teman, Mt Paran) to their new land of Israel. He envisages flashing rays of splendour emanating from a divine hand that is filled with immense power. He sees the strength of diseases, enemy peoples and even mountains and rivers tremble and dissipate before such a superpower. This God is victorious at every turn!
Now Habakkuk turns to speak directly to the One whose actions he witnesses in his mind’s eye. He naturally turns to questions (Hab 3:8), as he did at the beginning of the book. His observations become part of the conversation, as he savours each image with graphic, poetic force. This God with whom he is speaking is the One whose rule over the depths of the earth and the heights of the heavens is unparalleled. In his hand is the power to crush the leader of all wickedness and to deliver those who are under his own care.
Facing the Future
Being so powerfully drawn into this scene has caused Habakkuk to experience considerable visceral effects (Hab 3:16). But he has now experienced the source of ultimate power. The calamity caused by any foreign invader will not match the power that he has just seen.
A new perspective has been gained. The things which he once thought were of prime importance in order to live well have been demoted. Failed crops and flocks are not of ultimate concern. He can and will find joy in life, not in these things but in God his Saviour.
He will not be stuck in a bog of self-pity or complaint. He is not bound, but free. God will enable him to move nimbly along paths that others might miss. His faith has been replenished and this new hope brings him to a place of marvellous strength.
The God he sought at the beginning has answered.