Habakkuk 3 His Peoples Praise

Last night saw us finish off our quick study of Habakkuk, here are the notes.

The songs we sing show us how and what we think about things but they also influence us.  Songs reflect the spirit of the age they were written in.  That means even when the themes stay the same the way of thinking about such things change.

But the bible though written over centuries has enduring themes in its songs about God, be it Moses song of praise to God in Exodus, or Deborah’s in Judges 5, or David’s in 2 Samuel 22, or those in the Psalms - themselves written over hundreds of years.  They endure, they show us who God is and how he acts and they were written to influence those who follow after and will make them their own and sing them.

Habakkuk began in chapter 1 with questions to ask God, why are the faithful remnant in Judah not being saved from their oppressors?  And then when God revealed the Babylonian judgement; How, God, can you use such a wicked nation to judge one less wicked?  And final 1:17 How long will Babylon keep on indulging her wicked godless rule?  In chapter 2 we saw last God give Habakkuk and all his faith people a revelation of Babylon’s coming judgement and a vision for God’s faithful people to live by (2:14) “For the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”  The justified are called to live faithfully because they know God and where the future is headed.

And that revelation leads Habakkuk to praise God, (1, 19b) show us that this is a prayer for God’s people to pray or sing.  As Habakkuk pens his praise he draws on images of God’s deliverances of his people in the past, and like all great song writers draws on lyrics, or ideas in songs of the past. 

Do you remember making collages when you were a child?  **How did you make them?  Collections of images, words or photo’s on a theme all put on one poster of wall.  This song is a bit like of collage of the victories of God as he delivered his people in the past and it draws the conclusion that God is a God who can be trusted no matter the circumstances.

It’s a song so the structure is not necessarily logical, he is not building a cohesive argument but rather providing snapshots of a God worth trusting.

God is active and awesome

**Habakkuk begins how?  “LORD, I have heard...”  He is looking to the past and as he does so **how does he react “I stand in awe” he is amazed at God’s work.  And so he prays “Renew them in our day,” Lord work out your purposes, and plans for salvation today I pray.  He is not praying that God would not send the Babylonians to judge he knows they are coming, but he is trusting in the character and purposes of God he sees revealed in history.  Lord do the same again – deliver your people through the midst of their struggle and the threats that surrounded them, “Lord in wrath remember mercy”.

He knows that God will judge Judah and eventually Babylon, he knows that God rules(2:17) and reigns as sovereign of all the earth and that one day his glory will cover the earth.  He prays that God would be who he is that he would bring his salvation, achieve his purpose, fulfil his plans, and in justice remember mercy – that the righteous will live by their faithfulness.

This introduces the collage of images that is the source of this confidence and this prayer.

God is Glorious and Terrifying

**Where would you expect God to come from?  Heaven, the temple, Jerusalem.  **But where does God come from(3)?  Teman and Mount Paran.  It’s a reference to the root that Israel took from Sinai to the Promised Land, and is drawn from Deuteronomy 33:2 and Moses blessing of Israel.  Sinai where God’s glory was revealed, where even the partially reflected glory of God on the face of Moses terrifies Aaron and the Israelites so much that they ask him to veil his face.  And that glory is the theme of these verses, it is everywhere, God’s glory is uncontainable and it is overwhelmingly powerful(3-4).  So powerful that even the strongest most permanent things in creation, the mountains, quake and are reduced to rubble.  And as Israel advanced with God the nations around about them are terrified, because to oppose God means to face his glory and power in judgement(5, 6-7).

God is Warrior and Deliverer

(8)Is an odd verse isn’t it?  Was God angry with the rivers or the sea and why?  Some argue this is a reference to water as a symbol of chaos but I think it’s more historic than that.  The answer we are meant to give to the question it poses is no, God is not angry with the rivers and sea, but he does use them to deliver his people in history.  In fact that explanation makes most sense of the text and the historical collage here.

The text first – the question is posed is God angry at the sea and rivers?  We are not given an answer until we are told who he is angry at (12-13) **who is it?  “in anger you threshed the nations...You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness.”  God is not angry with the rivers he is angry with the nations who oppose his people – because in opposing his people they oppose him and his plans.  And the rivers (10)are used by God as a means of sweeping them away.

The historical – God is a warrior who fights to deliver his people, to save his anointed one.  Turn to Exodus 15 Moses sings a song of praise to God after God brings them safely through the Red Sea and wipes out the Egyptian army and you can see that song picked up here.  Turn to Judges 5:19-22 as Deborah praises God for his deliverance using the River Kishon with God pictured on his chariot.

God is a warrior who fights to deliver his people and keep his promises, to work out his plan of salvation, and ensure the coming of his anointed one.  (11)Introduces another picture to the collage recalling Joshua’s defeat of Israels’ enemies as God makes the Sun and Moon stand still so they can be utterly routed, and also adds another picture of David’s deliverance from his song of praise in 2 Samuel 22:7-16 which pictures God as an archer and delivering his anointed king.

God is an awesome warrior who contends with the wicked, and those oppose his plans, who keeps his word and will bring his plan of salvation.

What God was he is, what God has revealed of his character in his acts of deliverance, in his keeping of his covenant promises, and his pursuit of his plan of salvation, God’s people can trust him to be even as they face the Babylonian exile, and the wait for their return in 70 years.  The righteous, those who God has justified can live by faith trusting in the awesome God who is active who is glorious and terrifying, who is a warrior and their deliverer.

There is something raw and throbbing with power about Habakkuk’s description of God.  It challenges our downsized, tamed, domesticated view of God.  This is God in all his glory, in his sheer unstoppability, in his covenantal faithfulness , in his unending unswerving pursuit of his plan to bring salvation through his anointed one.

This collage of images confronts us with the real God we worship.  It ought to provoke the same reaction in us as in Habakkuk “I stand in awe of your deeds” and prayer Father God reveal yourself to people, save your people.  Do we ever think we have God nailed down, that we know all there is to know about him?  This chapter challenges us.

It reminds me of CS Lewis’s Narnia books and Aslan.  Aslan is not a tame lion, in fact you are never quite comfortable when he is around because you are always aware of his power and majesty, his untameability, yet you are utterly convinced that he is good.

A Right Response

Habakkuk began with questions, he began almost by putting God in the dock; what are you doing?  Don’t you see?  Are you listening?  Then he was appalled and asked; how can you use the wicked to swallow up the relatively righteous and how long?

But he comes to trust God because of who God is not because of the answer he gives, because he comes to know God not just know what he is doing.  It’s interesting because his questions are all about God revealing his plans, but God’s loving answer is not just here are my blueprints but here I am know me.  He has his view of God not just expanded but exploded.

Notice (16)it doesn’t remove his fear of what God is going to do, but it does enable him to wait trusting God – not sitting waiting like we do at a bus stop – but actively living serving God, worshipping God, teaching others how to worship God, while he waits for God to be who he is.

(17-18)And it enables him even in the midst of barrenness to rejoice not become embittered and cynical, because his joy comes from the God he knows and faith in his word not in his circumstances.  He will not draw conclusions about God from what he sees, but he reaches conclusions on what he sees based on what he knows about God.  That is what it means to live by faith, and it is a mark of God’s people.

The books closes with Habakkuk a changed man “The Sovereign LORD is my strength...”  Not because everything is going well, the wicked are still oppressing the righteous, justice is still being perverted, the exile and cruelty of the Babylonians is still on the horizon – knowing it is coming hasn’t removed those facts.  But Habakkuk knows God, the sovereign glorious, awesome, untameable, warrior God who keeps his covenant and will his rescue his people in his way which will be the best way.  And Habakkuk will live by faith, actively waiting, justified to live faithfully, liberated to serve joyfully, because God – this awesome amazing, terrifying God - is his strength.

How much more ought we who know that God is faithful, that he is our Saviour, that his determination to deliver his people sees his anointed one die in our place.  Every Sunday we meet on the first day of the week to remember God our Saviour, and to look forward to the day when everything will be put under Jesus feet and he will reign and rule.  “I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour”

Habakkuk 2 - God's call to His People

Here are my notes from Sunday's second in the series.


Last week Habakkuk asked God three questions, what was the first? (1:2)How long, LORD, until you bring justice? And God’s answer was that he saw the injustice in Judah and he was acting - the Babylonians were his means of judgement and they would decimate Judah. But the ferocity and horror of the Babylonian conquests led Habakkuk to ask another question; what was it? How could the wicked swallow up the more righteous? How could God use godless, idolatrous, arrogant Babylon to judge Judah – far from perfect but with at least a remnant of the righteous? And finally ch1 ended with his third question which was what? (1:17)“Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?” In other words will there be an end to Babylon’s power and rule?

Here in chapter 2 God answers Habakkuk again, God the creator speaks lovingly and graciously, answering his creations complaint. God’s answer shows he is the sovereign of all history but that he is also concerned for his people as he gives a revelation, a vision, of the future. Habakkuk gets a God’s eye view of history.

It’s a bit like the satellite image you can get on Google maps, as opposed to Habakkuk’s street level view, and as such Habakkuk is shown things that are distant for him but will happen and he and the rest of the remnant are exhorted to live faithfully – in the light of the God they know and the revelation he has given.

1. Waiting faithfully (2-5)
God’s answer to Habakkuk is for more than just Habakkuk, what is he told to do with the revelation? (2) “Write down the revelation, and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it...” This is a vision for all God’s faithful remnant. It is to be permanent recorded so they can keep coming back to it, so that as months turn into years God’s faithful remnant can remind themselves that a time is certainly coming when Babylon’s rule and cruelty will be God judged.

(4-5)Contrast the life of the righteous, or the justified, and Babylon. Babylon will continue to be what it is, puffed up, arrogant, insatiable in its appetite for conquest, pleasure, wine, riches, and reputation. But the righteous are to be different (4)“but the righteous will live by their faithfulness, or faith.”

They are not righteous because of their faithfulness but the idea is of a court of law, a status conferred by God – God has declared them righteous they haven’t earned it. They are the justified. And they live as the justified, there is some debate as to whether it should read faith or faithfulness, but actually both ideas are present; faith in God leads natural to faithful living. What does their faithfulness look like, it looks like waiting; knowing that even as Babylon looks all powerful and permanent that it is not, they will not give up hope or doubt God’s sovereignty or his word even as it lingers, they live knowing it will certainly come. The justified live trusting in God’s future and singing Habakkuk’s song of praise even in captivity in Babylon.

The justified, God’s people, the faithful remnant live by faith not by sight, they live by vision not view, and this revelation is to set their expectation. This vision is given so that God’s faithful people maintain their trust in God even at the darkest moments in their history, and so that they live out that faith.

What will living out such faith mean? It means not giving up hope, not becoming bitter and cynical, it means living life faithfully trusting God unafraid to be different as we see with Daniel and his three friends.

This verse is picked up three times in the New Testament and it has the same focus we see here, twice Paul uses it to remind believers that they are saved by faith (Rom 1:17, Gal 3:11) not by works or keeping the law. And in Hebrews it is applied as an exhortation to endurance and perseverance(10:38). Those quotations reinforce the points made here; God’s people are justified by God to live by faith which is evidenced in faithfulness – an ongoing perseverance that trust itself to God our Saviour and his revelation that determines our expectations.

2. A God worth waiting for
Here God answers Habakkuk’s question(1:17), there will be an end, a reckoning, a judgement, Babylon’s arrogance and cruelty is not going to go unpunished. In fact one of the noticeable things about each of the woe pronouncements is the reciprocity of the judgement – there is a sense of Babylon getting what they deserve as the captive peoples of Babylon taunt at her judgement and downfall, even the word woe is really something like ‘Ahah!’ a mocking pronouncement(6a). Just as ch1 piled up images of savagery and conquest so here each woe has piled up images linked to a theme.

a. The Plunderer Plundered(6b-8)
Here the focus is on plunder and spoil, Babylon has taken riches from others, be it actual riches or people and now they will rise up and plunder her.

b. The Secure Unsecured(9-11)
Safety and security are the focus of the next paragraph in terms of building a lasting empire or securing a dynasty. That’s what the term house signifies, all Babylon’s conquest and hoarded wealth look like they have secured her empire, but (10) Babylon will be held accountable, her life is forfeit, (11)the very things Babylon has built its empire with, its plundered and stolen things cry out against it for judgement, and it is not secure.

c. Worldly glory humbled by the God of true glory(12-14)
The next picture is of a city built as a lasting monument shining in its splendour as a testament to the power and skill of those who built it. But says God it is built on bloodshed and injustice. Its glory is not glory, its building is pointless, and it will be burned up. It’s a verse that evokes memories of Sodom and Gomorrah and of God’s going before his people as they took Canaan as a consuming fire. Their tainted worldly glory will not last, it will be destroyed. It may look impress and lasting but it is not! But one day everyone will see something truly glorious.

(14)And the justified are to live faithfully because one day true glory will be seen; “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” Isaiah 11v4, 9 tells us that day is when the branch of Jesse comes to judge justly. A judgement different from the judgement the Babylonians enact because it will be global in scale and godly in character, it will be a judgement of righteousness and faithfulness which establishes a new world 11:6-16 when all people come and bow to God. Here is a hope for God’s people to live by.

d. The Shameless Shamed (15-17)
The image here is of what? Drunkenness and the shameful acts which flow from that drunkenness, which Babylon has gloried in and bullied others into. But (16) now it is Babylon’s turn “You will be filled with shame instead of glory. Now it is your turn! Drink and let your nakedness be exposed!” God is judging, hence that image of the cup as Babylon drinks the cup of God’s wrath against its sin and god-defying arrogance. All the violence, obscenities and shaming of others will be paid back on Babylon. Its disgrace will be so great it will cover, obscure or obliterate its glory.

e. The worship of the speechless silenced by the God who speaks (18-20)
The final woe is pronounced on Babylon’s worship as idolatry is exposed for the illogical and rebellious thing it is. In those days when one nation beat and took captive another it was viewed as the king’s victory but also the triumph of one god over another. But not so says God – Babylon are my tool to judge my people God told us in ch1. And here we see God silence the false idolatrous worship from his holy temple – his command for silence silencing the noisy worship of dumb lifeless objects. Because God is God, he is sovereign, he alone is God and there is no other.

What those woes emphasise is the comprehensive nature of God’s judgement, there will be an end, and God has a plan for his people that goes beyond the time of the Babylonians, it is (14)“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.” There is a hope, a future, a promise to live for and God reveals it so his people live through the dark times mourning the injustice, praying for God to act, and trusting that one day he will do so. This revelation enables the justified to live by faith in the future but drawing that down into the present evidenced in faithful living.

Know who your God is, listen to his revelation and let it set your expectations, and live out that reality. It is what enables God’s people to serve him even in exile.

Habakkuk 2 reminds us not to fall into the trap of assuming the world will always be as it is now, that the same powers will always rule seemingly with impunity. God gives us the same glimpse as he gives Habakkuk and in Revelation a fuller vision of our future, Revelation 18-19 pictures the end and judgement of Babylon – the world opposed to God, and gives us a fuller picture of the day when God’s glory will fill the earth when Christ returns and everything is put under his feet. And why does God give Habakkuk and Revelation to us? So that we use it to feed our faith, so that the justified people of God live out their reality, to stoke the fires of our faith as we live waiting for that day.

Judge the world not by sight but by faith, revelation sets our expectations and calls us to live by faith.

So what?

We saw from ch1 that we ought to mourn at injustice, but it is not to derail our faith. God reveals to us that he will judge, we are to live not indifferent to injustice because of that but we are not hopeless either. Instead we are to be an advocate for the oppressed and for God as we hope in him.

As we experience injustice and oppression we are also liberated to continue to live faithfully, entrusting ourselves to God who judges justly. That enables us as sinners saved by grace to love others even those who oppress us.

Revelation is to set our expectations; God’s people endure and persevere “the righteous will live by their faithfulness.

Thinking rightly about wrong

Habakkuk is quite a difficult book for us to get into, after all when was the last time you sat and read poetry.  It is a book designed to create in us an emotional response.  I think sometimes we are very afraid of our emotions and are in danger if divorcing our emotions from our worship or prayer.  But Habakkuk shows us that robust faith responds emotionally to distress and injustice whilst maintaining a robust faith in the character of God.

One of the issues that was raised in the discussion afterwards was about application.  Is the application of the first section to unbelieving persecution of believers, or persecution from other believers, or those who would call themselves believers?  I think in Habakkuk's time the persecution was primarily led by the king, and it was oppression of the remnant faithful to God among a generation that was unfaithful to God and disbelieving.  In short I think the application is both; we ought to mourn as we see believers oppressed and their fundamental rights denied and justice twisted into injustice by unbelieving society.  But in some ways we want to mourn all the more when such things come from those who claim to share their faith.

In Britain this is increasingly happening within denominational circles; as those who stand on the word of God are attacked by those who do not.  It is also happening in the law courts; as laws which were based on a Christianised past are repealed or changed, or ruled on in a way which hems in believers.

How ought we to respond?  I think Habakkuk calls us to mourn but to turn to the sovereign God who is our deliverer and who keeps his covenant.

Habakkuk 1:1-2:1 Why do you, a Holy God, tolerate wrong?

We've started a short 3 week series in Habakkuk here are my notes on the first chapter.
As we look it at the world it poses lots of questions of us doesn’t it. No-one who looks seriously at their own lives or the world around them can conclude that everything is fine, that there’s nothing wrong with our world. War, injustice, terrorism, conflict, murder, violence, oppression see to that.

I was sent an email this week from Barnabas Fund; here are the headlines in this week’s prayer bulletin:

• A church worker was killed and his pregnant wife seriously injured in a machete attack by a gang of Muslims in Ethiopia.

• Around 3,000 Christians were forced to flee their homes in Pakistan when hundreds of Muslims targeted Christian property following blasphemy accusations against local Christians.

• Egypt's new political order looks increasingly likely to have an Islamic character after statements by leading Muslim Brotherhood figures revealed their intention to implement sharia law.

• Christians in Islamic countries are bracing themselves for a violent backlash following the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

What are we to think about such things, how are we to respond to them? How ought our response to be different to the world’s response? Is it ok to question God about such things? And are there right ways and wrong ways to do this?

Habakkuk is a short but unique book, it is a dialogue between the prophet and God, a 1-2-1, though God’s answers are addressed to intended for his people via Habakkuk. In it we see Habakkuk struggling with the same questions we do, we see a God who is not indifferent to injustice, to his people, or an individual’s struggles, and we see Habakkuk learning and responding by faith.

Habakkuk is poetry, it is designed to teach us about God, but as it does so it is designed to be felt, to provoke an emotional response as it leads us with Habakkuk from frustration, to incredulity through to praise.

1. A Cry for God’s People to Cry
(2)Habakkuk begins with a question “How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” And he isn’t alone, Psalms, lamentations, and Job all echo this cry. Habakkuk has been praying, asking God to act and God has not answered him, God hasn’t saved his people, he hasn’t even given a sign that he is listening. But notice the tenacity of Habakkuk’s faith, he keeps on crying out to God because he knows that God alone has the answer, that God alone is sovereign, that God alone is God.

**Why has he been crying out to God? (3)Because he sees injustice and God seems to be tolerating wrong. Habakkuk goes on to describe the injustice he sees in Judah; piling up the pairs of injustices as he describes the state and despair in Judah. He lives amid a maelstrom of destruction and violence, where strife and conflict abounds, where the law is effectively paralysed helpless and unable to act, where justice never wins, and where even those who are faithful to God are surrounded, harassed and have no hope of rescue, because there is no justice for the righteous, only corruption.

Judah has become a lawless, godless cess pit where anything goes. Doesn’t it make you want to cry out with Habakkuk – ‘How long O LORD?’

Habakkuk writes about 609-605BC, Josiah a good king who rediscovered Deuteronomy and reformed Judah bringing revival has died and his son Jehoiakim is now king. 2 Kings 23:37 sums his reign up like this: “he did evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as his predecessors had done.” He undoes all the reforms of Josiah and reinstitutes idol worship and worse. Jeremiah tells us more of his reign; he killed those who opposed him, he assassinated Uriah for prophesying of God’s impending judgement, he burned Jeremiah’s scroll of prophecy, and oversaw a corrupt and immoral priesthood.

You can see why Habakkuk is so troubled, why he’s crying out, why he wants God to act to bring justice and why he is perplexed that he doesn’t.

This is a cry for God’s people to take up, it is not a cry of doubt but the cry of those who know that the only hope of justice is the God of justice. Hope doesn’t lie with a nation state, or a government, or a United Nations. The only hope for justice is God. As God’s people looking at the world isn’t this the cry that comes to our lips. A cry the New Testament translates for us as “Come Lord Jesus!”

We cannot be indifferent to injustice and suffering, we cannot be hardhearted and we must not claim ignorance or allow ourselves to be hardened to it, we must stand with others, as Habakkuk does crying out, interceding with God on behalf of others. In Revelation 6:9-10 we see the souls of those slain because of their faith and they are in heaven crying out “How long, Sovereign lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood.” How long is the cry we are to echo, will we take up the cry. A cry not of doubt but of trust in God alone, because when God comes there will be no more injustice! God alone is the world’s hope.

2. God’s unexpected answer
Having called God to look and see, now(5) God calls Habakkuk to look and be amazed. (6)God is not indifferent, he has been listening, he has been watching and he has been acting; “I am raising up the Babylonians”, God has been preparing his means of judgement, and the images that God uses to portray this nation are horrifying.

Again the descriptions are piled up so that we get the impression of an overwhelming and unstoppable force that will sweep all before it. (6-7)They are ruthless and impetuous, they seize, they sweep, they are unstoppable, they are feared and dreaded, they are a law unto themselves, focused only on conquest and honour. And then come an series of rapid fire powerful, visceral and terrifying animal description of their speed, their ferocity, their stamina, their hunger to devour, their relentlessness. They will sweep all before them kings, rulers, fortified cities, as if they were nothing, like a wind they simply blow through nations and kings destroying and changing everything.

The Babylonians are an unstoppable force of nature and Judah will be swallowed up, the Babylonians are God’s means of judgement.

But notice (11)they are not godly but guilty. God will use them to judge but he will not restore justice through the Babylonians. God in his sovereignty will use the Babylonians as instruments of judgement but they will be held accountable for their evil.

3. A God worth waiting for
Habakkuk is horrified, God’s answer answers his question but in doing so provokes yet more questions. But notice how he begins (12-13)he begins by reminding himself of the character of God; God is everlasting, he is eternal, sovereign, he is my Rock, he is judge, he is holy. And (12)“you will never die” is better translated “we will never die”, even in the face of such overwhelming forces Habakkuk clings to the promise of God’s covenants – God is a promise keeping God and he will sustain his faithful remnant.

But Habakkuk (13)knowing all he does about God but having heard God’s judgement is perplexed “Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” God we are bad but some are faithful, how can you allow the godless Babylonians to sweep us all away?

Habakkuk knows what this will mean, his illustration of the Babylonians as fishermen in their careless treatment of their catch shows that.

But Habakkuk’s question is not one of doubt, it is a question of faith as he tries to reconcile what he knows of God’s unchanging character and covenantal faithfulness with what has been revealed. He knows that he will not find the answer anywhere else, his questions drive him to God not away from God because he is utterly convinced there is no other answer.

And so (2:1)he resolves to stand and wait for God, “I will look and see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.” He does not turn away from God he turns towards God. He is appalled but remains utterly convinced of God’s character and he puts his faith in God’s actions because of his character. Circumstances do not determine his view of God, instead he waits on a God who he knows to show what he is doing through his actions.

Habakkuk’s complaints are the questions of the faithful; Lord I want to understand, Lord I trust you but I’m struggling to resolve what I see happening with your plan, Lord help me keep faith while I wait for you to answer.

Habakkuk’s questions are questions of a faith searching for answers not looking for someone to blame. Are we looking for answers for those same questions?

How are we doing so? We have what Habakkuk does not we have more of the scriptures; Jesus words that we will continue facing persecution as his people, Paul’s call to put on the armour of God ready for battle, Revelations picture of the history of the world as a conflict between God’s people and those who oppose him. The promise that God takes these things and uses them for our good and his glory, that he lovingly disciplines us as we face persecution, refining our faith, but the promise that one day he will restore justice.

As you see injustice what is your response? Is it to callous your heart, to build up a hard layer so you do not feel others pain? Is it to lock such questions away? Habakkuk calls us to love others, to respond as emotionally as the prophet does; to take up his cry to God, to seek to wait for God’s answer and to live with an unshakeable but robust faith in God that clings to his character even in crisis because we know he keeps his word.