How many times have we prayed toward Heaven and wondered if God is really hearing us at all? As the saying goes, it seems like prayers only go as high as the ceiling. If we have been here in our lives we begin to understand the plight of Habakkuk. Habakkuk gives us a little insight into the way he felt about his environment in verse two of the first chapter of his book. He wrote:
O LORD, how long shall I cry, and you will not hear! [even] cry out unto you [of] violence, and you will not save!
It is interesting how Habakkuk begins this verse, “O LORD”. The very idea of one who is the “LORD” over another implies that the one “Lording” is in control, and yet Habakkuk is questioning Him. How many times do we come before the Heavenly Father, recognize His omnipotence, refer to His omniscience and omnipresence, and then question Him? One of the great lessons in this book is that God is in control even when the circumstances reflect something different.
Habakkuk then shares his reason for questioning, “how long shall I cry, and you will not hear?” There are many situations in life that make us cry out to God. It is no different with Habakkuk here. He has experienced something of which he desires help, and he is driven to the one who can help better than any other – God, and yet when he cries out to God, Habakkuk's perception is that God is not hearing him. Even worse, Habakkuk's idea is that God is unwilling to hear him. Now because Habakkuk believed this to be true doesn't necessarily make it so. In fact, Habakkuk's assessment was wrong. We shall find later that God did hear Habakkuk, and not only did He hear him, but He had a plan all along.
Next Habakkuk continues his thought, “even cry out unto you of violence, and you will not save?” In addition to Habakkuk's perception that God doesn't hear his prayer, he now ramps the verbiage up a bit and declares the importance of his prayer. This “crying” out to God has to do with violence. Violence was prevalent in Habakkuk's day. Some of us can relate to this today. We wonder, how does God allow all the violence that we see reported on television to continue? Some of us have been victims of violence, and we have cried out to God ourselves, and perhaps we too have wondered, “will God ever save?” Habakkuk even surmises the “will” of God is to not save - “will not save,” and still God has a plan and He is going to work it out as we shall discover later in this book.
It could be that we are going through circumstances currently that we have no understanding about whatsoever. We have prayed. We have cried. We have even shouted, screamed, kneeled, and prostrated ourselves on the floor, and we still have no answer. We may wonder as Habakkuk did, “O LORD, How long shall I cry?” This is the beauty of our study through the book of Habakkuk because just when we think that God is not listening, He is, and He is working on a plan for our lives about which we have no idea. We shall discover more about our relationship with our Heavenly Father as we study through this book together. So be sure to follow along, and let's listen to what God has to say to us through His word.
Next time we will look further into Habakkuk's complaint before God, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.
Until tomorrow...there is more...
Look for the new devotional book “Equipped for Battle – From Generation to Generation” in all major bookstore sites, www.amazon.com ; www.barnesandnobles.com ; download to e-books, and find it locally at www.mrzlc.com/bookstore
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