Habakkuk 1:11 Devotional

Habakkuk is probably one of my favorite Old Testament books. I was first taken in by the name: Habakkuk, its one of those bizarre and clearly foreign names that seem so ancient. Names like David, Elisha, Joshua, and Esther are more palatable, but only because they have become so common place across many cultures and countries. Next, as I read the book, I loved the imagery present in the poetry. It is hard to find the rhythm, beat, or rhyme in the English versions, but the imagery speaks volumes. Finally, I began to identify with the book because at times I saw myself as the Babylonians: strong, powerful, and merciless. Other times I saw myself as the people of Judah: seemingly righteous, feeling like the victim of a greater power against which I could do nothing, and being called to task for the sins I have tolerated in my life.

So I present to you a short devotional I did on Habakkuk 1:11 during my final semester of Hebrew when I was in seminary. Perhaps I will do a Habakkuk series to share this beautiful book with you all, but this is the start at least:

אָ֣ז חָלַ֥ף ר֛וּחַ וַֽיַּעֲבֹ֖ר וְאָשֵׁ֑ם ז֥וּ כֹחֹ֖ו לֵאלֹהֹֽו׃

Then they sweep on as the wind and pass through. They are guilty, these ones, their strength is their god.

Biblical Context:

            Habakkuk is lamenting to God that evil surrounds him in Judah and asks how long he will have to tolerate it. God answers him and says that the violence and injustice in Judah will be met with more violence because he is raising up the Babylonians to be his instrument of judgment upon the house of Judah. This verse describes the Babylonians as unstoppable and guilty. The guilty will bring the judgment of God upon the guilty. The people of the Northern Kingdom of Judah felt that they were innocent and righteous and that this punishment was undeserved. God goes on to tell them that this is a just punishment for them for they are neither righteous, nor innocent.

            A grammatical note: all the verbs in the verse are in the third, masculine, singular form, yet the verse is translated as “they” rather than “he” or “it”. This is because the singular form is used throughout the passage to refer to the Babylonians as a single unit rather than as a plural group. The Babylonians come as a united force to punish the people of Judah who are also seen as a single unit. Judgment is being poured out on a nation-wide scale, and not just individually.

Life application:

            They Babylonians made strength their god. They didn’t ascribe power to the Lord, the creator of the heavens and the earth, but to their own might as seen in their numbers and military prowess.  Ultimately God will judge them for their guilt, but not yet. When we rely on our own power and ability and strength to move through life and problems, we too become guilty of thinking we are more powerful and more sovereign than we truly are. Relying on ourselves rather than God may work for a while, but soon, we find we are in over our heads and have to turn back to the One who is all powerful and almighty if we want to survive our own judgment. Humility is understanding that God is God and we are not, and living in light of that fact every day. It means relying on God’s strength to pull us through life’s trials and success, and not our own. When we are continually successful, it is tempting to feel that we can attribute that success to ourselves only, rather than to God. But God is sovereign, which means He is always in control of everything, therefore we need Him in our successes to keep us humble, and in our failures to endure and survive.

            Furthermore, when bad things happen to us because of other people, we should remember that God is fully in control and knows the true heart of everyone. We will all be judged for our intentions and actions. Therefore, let us not ask “Why me?” but rather let us acknowledge that God is greater than those who come bent on hurting us and that our suffering should draw us back to Him, rather than make us more self reliant.

For the Graduates, Psalm 16

I have been thinking about Psalm 16 lately, especially in light of the fact that I have several friends that are graduating (from high school, college, and seminary). The inevitable question of “What’s next?” always seems to pop up. For some of these friends, the answer is simple: “going to college at XYZ in the fall,” or “starting work at ____.” For others, after saying they will work on sleeping for at least a week, the question just draws an uncomfortable “I don’t know.” I often feel the same way as I try to figure out this whole writing for a living thing.

Psalm 16 provides a lot of hope and security for those who trust in the Lord:

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
² I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
    I have no good apart from you.”

³ As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
    in whom is all my delight.

⁴ The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
    their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
    or take their names on my lips.

⁵ The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
    you hold my lot.
⁶ The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

⁷ I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
    in the night also my heart instructs me.
⁸I have set the Lord always before me;
    because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
    my flesh also dwells secure.
¹⁰ For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
    or let your holy one see corruption.

¹¹ You make known to me the path of life;
    in your presence there is fullness of joy;
    at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

God is not just a good thing in our lives, He is the best thing, and focusing on Him first in all we do draws everything else into perspective. We can only know true joy when we are in a right relationship with Him and seeking Him.

For those recent graduates, verses 5-8 especially come to mind. God has given us a specific “lot” and “future” in life. But beyond that lot or future is the joy that comes with knowing and embracing the fact that God is the best thing we have; He is our portion and our cup which overflows. Therefore, we can stand up to our culture’s insistence to eat, drink, have sex, and be merry in college with the knowledge that God is better than those things and all they provide is a fleeting joy; not the full and lasting joy that comes with knowing our Savior. We can fight the despair and desperation of being unemployed and in debt from an expensive education by knowing that God has already set the lines of our inheritance and assures us that it is a good one. We may be penniless, homeless, and friendless, but because of our faith in Christ, we are called sons and daughters of God, and heirs with Christ!

This is not to say that life post-graduation is not hard, and that we will not face trials. We will! If we trust God and desire to be more Christ-like we will certainly face trials as God detaches us from the world more and more, and attaches us to Him. This is not an easy process. The psalmist is rejoicing though because he has the secret to success through these trials: dependence and reliance on God. Only with God can be face the good, the bad, and the ugly of our futures and stand unshaken.

My prayer for all the high school, college, and seminary graduates at this time is that they would draw closer to God as they face uncertainty in their futures, and the changes that come with completing their current level of education. May God make known to them the path of life, the joy that comes with His presence, and the sure blessings that await us all as we follow His will for our lives. Amen and Amen!

Malachi 4:1-6

If you are reading this post then you have made it! After twelve posts on this small book, we are finally at the end, and what an end it is! God makes one finally promise about the evildoers in the land that seem to have His favor, and then gives the righteous believers the promise of hope, joy, and justice.

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. ² But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. ³And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

⁴“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

⁵“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. ⁶ And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

This chapter starts out by acknowledging that the arrogant and evildoers (the ones who live outside God’s commands, and therefore, outside His correction, reproof, and love) will be destroyed. There will be nothing left of them. No monument, no resting place, just stubble. When I see this word I think of going in to use the bathroom sink right after my husband has shaved. There are tiny pieces of his stubble all over the white bathroom sink. Some English versions say that they will be like chaff. Being a city dweller, it took be a long time to figure out really what chaff was. When the wheat turns golden and dry in the fields, it is harvested and, for lack of a better word, shaken until the wheat grains separate from the chaff. In the picture above, you can see the oval grains, intermixed with the chaff, which is the the rest of the wheat head. That’s how small chaff is, small enough to be scattered by a light breeze.

There is another metaphor used here, “set them ablaze”. After a fire has completely consumed its fuel (wood) the only thing left is ash, and unless the ash is kept damp or contained, it will be blown around. If you try to catch the larger pieces they will just disintegrate between your fingers. When God says He is going to leave “neither root nor branch” He means that there will be no trace that there was ever a plant or tree growing there. This means that all record of the existence of these evildoers will be gone and erased. Reading this verse makes me realize that I really don’t want to be one of these evildoers.

So we have a choice before us. We can have an easy life now, but have all evidence of it completely erased later, or we can suffer in the hands of our righteous and gracious God, and by given healing and joy later. Verse two talks about the reward and joy that awaits those who fear, revere, and praise the name of the Lord. Their suffering shall end, their wounds shall be healed, they will dance with joy, leap with laughter, and in doing so trample down the ashes of the wicked that lie under their feet. I confess, I have never seen calves leaping with energy and joy from their stalls, but I can imagine it as I think of my dear dog, Theodore, and how excited and happy he gets when he knows he gets to go on a car ride. The faithful are given the best thing that there is, and they respond with great joy and praise.

The phrase, “sun of righteousness” is applied to Jesus who came and healed the sick. He testified to John the Baptist: “the bind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have the good news preached to them (Matthew 11:5).” This phrase is also used in the third verse of the well-known Christmas Carol, Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Christ is the one who came with healing, to reconcile a broken world back to Himself and God the Father so that they could know their God and their Redeemer, and live life to the fullest as ordained by God.

Verse four is a call to remember that God is God, and not some happy-go-lucky and fickle friend. He has given us rules for living, even today. We may not look to the Mosaic Law to figure out how to treat others, but we learn from Jesus, John, and Paul about loving others, bearing with each other’s weaknesses, and keeping each other accountable to the faith we have professed. Even today, we need to remember what Jesus taught us about being a neighbor to others, loving others, caring for the poor and disenfranchised, and living a life above reproach.

Finally, the promise of Elijah coming to rekindle the hearts of the people and bring unity to families, communities and nations. What God is promising is that there will be a change in the behavior of the people. They will not continue down the road to hell with their good intentions, but they will be able to fulfill them and live righteous and holy lives as they were intended to. This is change that can be trusted, because God has proved Himself time and time again to His people as trustworthy and having an unfailing love for them which has kept them from being reduced to stubble—even in their wickedness.

We also know that God is trustworthy because He kept this promise also. He fulfilled His promise to send Elijah to the people about four hundred years after making it. John the Baptist came and sparked a revival in the hearts of the people that helped Jesus to minister to them and testify to the new work God was doing among them. Jesus himself says, “And if you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah who was to come (Matthew 11:14).” This is not to say that John was Elijah reincarnate—but that he had Elijah’s spirit of faithfulness and evangelism so that he could minister and prepare the way for Christ.

To wrap up Malachi, perhaps it is best to see this book as God’s call to His people to wake up and remember who they were. For us too, we need to remember that we are called by God to a certain purpose and kind of life. We are called to hold ourselves to God’s standards and remember that while He is forgiving, He is also just and is going to judge all our sins one day. If we suffer now, it is so that we can leap with joy later and for longer (like, for all eternity). God is not afraid to do what it takes to make his people holy. This is so important to remember: God’s primary concern for us, His people, is our holiness, not our happiness. There will be happiness, but it is born of a deep joy that comes from knowing our redeemer, savior, and God. So let us humble ourselves before our great and mighty God, and seek not only His forgiveness, but also to know Him and His will for our lives.