When God Doesn't Part 2

In response to the prophet’s complaint, God informs Habakkuk that he is indeed at work, “For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation” (). God’s response to Habakkuk must have been shocking to the prophet. God was not inactive; he was at work. However, the way of God’s working made no sense too Habakkuk. God had chosen to work through the Chaldeans (soon to be referred to as “Babylon”), who were a godless, violent, and wicked nation. God even acknowledges that they are “guilty men, whose own might is their god!” (1:11).

“The Lord answered Habakkuk’s question (cf. 1:2–4) by informing him that Judah would be judged by God through the Babylonians. The Babylonians (‘Kaldu’ in the Assyrian annals) were a Semitic people of southern Babylonia. When Nabopolassar, a native Chaldean governor, took the Babylonian throne in 626 B.C., he inaugurated a dynasty that made the ‘Chaldean’ name famous. The word is used in the Bible as a virtual synonym for ‘Babylonian’” (Robert B. Hughes and J. Carl Laney, Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary, The Tyndale Reference Library [Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001], 361).

Rather than rejoicing that God was no longer silent but was about to do his mighty work, Habakkuk prays another complaint to God (1:12–2:1). Habakkuk tells God, “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?” (1:13). First, Habakkuk protested God using an evil nation for his purposes. How could God use a wicked nation to accomplish his purposes? Couldn’t God answer their prayers a different way? Secondly, why God would use a more wicked people to devour the ones who are comparatively more righteous?

Habakkuk continues his complaint by asking God if this injustice will continue to go unpunished, “Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?” (1:17). “Habakkuk understood, for the use of enemy nations to discipline Israel and Judah was a well-established precedent. But there was still a moral issue that troubled the prophet. How could God use a less righteous people to discipline the more righteous? How could God permit the Babylonians to succeed? This problem has troubled believers in one form or another from the beginning. Why does God permit the wicked to succeed in this world? Why doesn’t he act, so that the good rather than the wicked prosper? The answers we find in Habakkuk show us that the wicked do not succeed—and that no one, good or bad, can avoid the disciplining hand of God” (Lawrence O. Richards, The Bible Reader’s Companion (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1991), 560, electronic ed.)

.Because God’s answer to Habakkuk was not what he expected, he became disappointed and continued to question God. In the same manner, when our expectations for how we think life should go aren’t fulfilled, we begin to question. The Gospels also reveal to us a powerful story of how Jesus failed to meet someone’s expectations. John the Baptist had devoted his life to preparing the way for the coming of Jesus and had witnessed the confirming mark of the Holy Spirit descending like a dove on Jesus at his baptism. Yet, after all these events, John finds himself wasting away in prison, wondering if Jesus is indeed the Messiah. In his struggle of doubt, John sends some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (). John’s doubt centered on the fact that Jesus’s life and mission seems to contradict what the Messiah should have been doing for Israel. John wanted to know if Jesus was the expected one? In other words, for John (and most of Israel) the Messiah had certain expectations placed upon him, and Jesus was failing in meeting those expectations.

We all face the same dilemma of John the Baptist. When Jesus doesn’t meet our expectations, do we become disillusioned and angry, and decide not to follow him? When tragedy hits, do we feel God has abandoned us? Do we easily give up and fail to trust his plan for us? Jesus’s response to John the Baptist is vital for us when we are grappling with our unfulfilled expectations of God, “And blessed is the one who is not offended by me” ().

In order to hold on firmly to our faith, we must let go of our expectations of how God works in situations and in answer to our prayers. We must live surrendered lives in the reality that God declares: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” ().

Application

Bottom Line:

We must let go of our expectations of how God should work in this world or how he should answer our prayers.

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When God Doesn't Part 2

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