Today's reading: Habakkuk 1-2; Hebrews 7
Habakkuk should be an incredibly affirming and encouraging book for anybody who has ever struggled with reconciling the goodness of God with the evil and hardship of this world.
Habakkuk opens his book by unabashedly calling God out for failing to do something about the evil, corruption, and injustice in Israel. He specifically asks God how long he has to cry out to him about all of these things without Him listening. And when he speaks so boldly and brashly, indicting God for what looks like His indifference, God doesn't reject, rebuke, or condemn Habakkuk, but answers him. So I first want to call out that we don't need to be afraid or feel guilty about struggling with these questions, or hesitate to bring them before the Lord. God knows, much better than we do honestly, how fallen and broken this world is, and how limited our scope of vision and understanding is. We may not always get a direct answer like Habakkuk does, but we can be confident that our questions and concerns are legitimate and that God will not reject us for having them.
The ironic thing is that, far from being assuaged by the Lord's answer, Habakkuk's struggle is only intensified when the Lord answers him. God answers that He is, in fact, going to deal with the evil and corruption in Israel, and that He is using Babylon to do it. God says that He is raising up Babylon for this purpose, and they will be His ultimate arm of judgement against Israel. The reason this doesn't really help Habakkuk at all is that, for as bad as Israel is, Babylon is far worse! For all the injustice, corruption, idolatry, etc. in Israel, Babylon exemplifies far more, so how could greater evil in Babylon possibly be the Lord's answer to evil in Israel?
Again here, God does not chastise Habakkuk for what really amounts to a rebuke of God and His plans! No, far from chastising, God understands Habakkuk's confusion and plight, and He answers Him a second time, giving him the answer we have seen and talked about in this blog series already from the other prophets. God tells Habakkuk that Babylon is operating, in this moment, as His arm of judgement, but it is out of pride, not righteous obedience, that Babylon is operating, and so Babylon too will be judged for their evil once God is done using them.
This is why I say this book should be a comfort and encouragement to any of us who have ever struggled with questions like this. God is good, righteous, and holy, and He calls His people to be like Him in these regards, so it is completely reasonable that His people would struggle to reconcile those attributes of our God with the evil that now exists in the world He created. God is not afraid of our questions and He doesn't take issue with us bringing them before Him. However, there may be times when we struggle with these questions and, whether we get an answer from the Lord or not, have to land where Habakkuk does in chapter 3, relying on what we know of the nature, character, and past works of God as the basis of assurance that, despite our limited vision and lack of understanding of His plans for the future, God truly is good, and He will ultimately fulfill His promises to defeat evil, destroy death, and bring His people into a glorious eternity with Him.
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