To Encourage You

Habakkuk 2:3 “. . . wait for it”

How many times have you seen the words above as part of a YouTube video or Facebook post?  Usually, it’s telling us to wait until the end because something very funny or surprising will happen in that videoclip, although it might at first not seem so.  Bet you never knew this was a quote from the Bible!  But actually, it is.  

In these words from the book of Habakkuk, the Lord is answering the deepest ponderings of the prophet’s heart.  As he looks around him at the wickedness of the world in his day, he is profoundly perplexed. Listen to his words as he pours out his complaints to God: “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted” (Habakkuk 1:1-4). 

Sounds a lot like our day and age, doesn’t it?  And so the Lord answers Habakkuk, but in a very strange way.  He tells him that as bad as it looks now, it’s about to get worse. He tells him that He’s about to raise up the wicked nation of Babylon. Though the rulers of that nation surely didn’t realize it, they would be serving as a rod of judgment against the nation of Israel.  God is patient with His people, but sooner or later He will deal with their sin.  Even more perplexed, Habakkuk responds “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?” (Habakkuk 1:13).  And then comes the Lord’s second reply: “For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, WAIT FOR IT; it will surely come; it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2:3).  And then this contrast: “Behold, his (i.e., Babylon’s) soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).  

In other words, God is telling Habakkuk, you’ve been walking by sight, rather than by faith. He tells him that no matter how things might look to him, there is far more going on than meets the eye.  And although things seem to be falling apart all around him, God is fully aware, and in the end, He will deal with the wicked as we would hope He should. 

But in the meantime, He points Habakkuk not to what his eyes can see, but to what God’s Word says.  The righteous will be vindicated. The wicked will be judged, and no matter how things look at the moment, he should “wait for it!” And then these awesome words of faith and wisdom to all of us as Habakkuk listens and believes: “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places” (Habakkuk 3:17-19). 

So, is that how you see things? As you look at your circumstances, is your hope in God? Do you realize that He sees everything, and in the end, He will surely make all things right? Are you caught up in the way things look at this moment, or are you willing to “wait for it,” and to see how the story ends?  

May God help us to “walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7),” and while we are walking, to trust our sovereign God Who controls all things.  May He give us the faith to “wait for it.”