Can you remember what your life was like before the iPhone? It was only 20 years ago, yet in the past two decades, culture change has shifted into overdrive. This constant change often makes the future seem dark, and if we’re going to survive the storm, we need answers and we need help. Enter Habakkuk, the ancient prophet with a message for the modern world.
In an era of culture change, we need Habakkuk because this book teaches Christians how to pray in faith in spite of a dark future. In the church today, there is much activity, yet faith seems small and prayer seems weak. When the future is dark, we need faith — a holy trust in God and in what He is doing; and we need prayer — a dependence upon the Lord as our strength rather than our own people, plans, and programs. Through Habakkuk, God calls Christians to great faith that leads to hopeful prayer, and for this reason, we have a special need for this minor prophet.
If we want to take up the prayerful faith of Habakkuk, we need to join him in three scenes. We need to join the prophet on the watchtower, on the march, and on the mountain. Through these three scenes, Habakkuk teaches prayerful faith that leads to Christian hope.
The Watchtower
We see the first scene in Habakkuk 2:1. In this verse, Habakkuk is like a watchman waiting for news. God has just revealed to him that Israel’s future is a failure and that Babylon will soon come to destroy. Yet in the midst of his sorrow, depression, and disillusionment, Habakkuk trusted that his perspective was not the full story.
In today’s society, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the news. Yet when the day’s headlines are done, we must not stop reading. We need to turn to the book of Habakkuk and remember that God’s headlines are still on the way. If you want to survive, you need the same faith as Habakkuk, the kind of faith that trusts that there’s more to the story you can’t yet see.
The March
We see the second scene in Habakkuk 3:3–15. Habakkuk sees a vision of the future with God on a war march, coming from the eastern mountains to destroy. In the midst of this vision, Habakkuk wrestles with the purpose of YHWH’s wrath. He sees all of God’s fury directed toward his day, and he wonders if there is any hope to escape the terror of the coming future. At the end of his wrestling, the prophet grasps faith, trusting that though God’s judgment is frightening, God’s plan ends with the salvation of His people.
If you want to survive as the world descends into chaos, you need the kind of faith that trusts God’s story. Stories are everywhere — and if you haven’t noticed, the world is trying to feed you a new story everywhere you turn. Movies, clothing companies, politicians, and all the rest each have a story they want to tell you about your life. But God has a story too. He wants to tell you a story about a world that descended into darkness, and about a God who came there too. In the midst of the years, you need to trust God’s story about the world, a story that includes both the chaos and God’s salvation.
The Mountain
The third scene is found in Habakkuk 3:17–19. In this scene, Habakkuk describes complete and total collapse. Yet even when all is lost, Habakkuk speaks about rejoicing and taking joy, and he explains why he can have hope in the very last verse. When his life is like a treacherous mountain path, the prophet knows that God will see him through. The text describes a Middle-Eastern equivalent of a deer walking on a high place (what would have been difficult mountainous terrain). The imagery that the prophet wants us to see is that when our path seems impossible, we need to have faith in the God of the impossible. Habakkuk can rejoice because he has faith that leads to hope.
If you want to find hope in a world that seems impossible to navigate, you need this kind of faith. You need a faith that gives you hope on any path. The world wants to tell you that there is no hope. The culture will tell you that your only hope for happiness and joy is to join them in the chaotic world of sin, sensation, and constant entertainment. Yet when your path seems impossible, you have to remember that you serve the God of the impossible. You can have hope for the path ahead not because you see a bright future, but because you serve a God who is light.
Habakkuk discovered all of these truths as he wrestled with God in prayer. As the future world is racing into the present, you can have the same hope as Habakkuk through the same prayerful faith. Pray that God would help you to trust Him with what you can’t see. Pray that God would give you faith to believe His story over/against the world’s narrative. Pray that you would see God Himself as your bright future. We need the book of Habakkuk because we need hope, and we find hope through prayerful faith.
— Joseph Bryant is a residential MDiv student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.