“I will climb up to my watchtower and stand at my guardpost. There I will wait to see what the Lord says and how he will answer my complaint…..Yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as a deer able to tread upon the heights.” Habakkuk 2:1 3:19.
I have a few days to catch up reading and posting on The Greatest Gift by Ann VosKamp. I have had headaches and needed to rest on Friday night. I think I was asleep by 7:30 pm so much for watching a Christmas movie.
Ann states, “There are Christmas trees that have no blossoms. There are a thousand ways you can suffer brave. And no one knows. No one knows that your heart quakes a bit inside.” She brings to mind the calamities that face us such as illness, financial problems and loss of a loved one or job.
Habakkuk is an Old Testament prophet who was perplexed by the impending destruction of his nation by the Babylonians, and he found his faith faltering. He was a man of honest doubts who endured trials and learned to wait on God. God called him to endure and he did that with joy.
The first question is “Lord, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear?” The second question is, “Are You not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One?” In Habakkuk 2:4 says, “Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith.”
Habakkuk takes his questions to God and God answers him. Ann says, “Struggling and rejoicing are not two chronological steps, one after the other, but two concurrent movements, one fluid with the other. Struggling can deepen joy. The secret of joy is always a matter of focus: a resolute focusing on the Father, not on fears. All fear is but the notion that God’s love ends. When you can’t touch the bottom is when you touch the depths of God.”
Do you have questions for God? What is the source of your fear? In 2 Timothy 1:7, “God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind.” God is love, he first loved us so that we can love him. His love is not based on our actions, God loves us regardless of our actions. Will you tell Jesus your concerns today?
What are your blessings today? If you are struggling, rejoice. If you are suffering, rejoice. If you are happy, rejoice. Rejoice in the Lords always, again I say rejoice is a worship song I have sung. [Tweet “It is hard to be sad when one can sing a worship song and rejoice.”]
Habakkuk 3 is a prayer. He ask God to revive his work, he praises him recounting his goodness and miracles ending with a hymn of faith. Renewal and rejoicing go hand in hand.
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