“So the law is paralyzed,
    and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
    so justice goes forth perverted.
‘Look among the nations, and see;
    wonder and be astounded.
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,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
    to seize dwellings not their own.'”
– Habakkuk 1:4-6

Habakkuk begins with a very ironic conversation between the prophet and the Lord.  It’s difficult to capture it in an abridged format like this.  Essentially, Habakkuk cries out to God about the widespread injustice in the world.  He complains about how long it’s taking God to respond to His people’s cries.

Then God basically replies by saying, “Good news!  I’m solving the problem by unleashing the Babylonian Empire to take over everything and destroy Jerusalem!”  Needless to say, the prophet is less than enthusiastic about God’s solution!  Nonetheless, that is exactly how God chose to deliver justice to a deeply corrupt and sinful nation.  And that is what God used to preserve and refine the faithful remnant who would carry on the faith.

God’s ways truly are bigger, better, higher, and yes, stranger, than we can possibly imagine.  He accomplishes His just and righteous will in ways that often make our jaws drop.  As a follower of Jesus, be diligent in praying for justice and righteousness to fill the earth.  But never try to limit God in how He accomplishes that goal.  Simply trust Him when He promises that He will. 

Understand that between now and the final judgment of the world by Jesus and the restoration of creation, there will be extremely difficult times.  They aren’t a reason to doubt God, they are the evidence that you can trust Him.  #FollowJesus

“The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy.” – 2 Chronicles 36:15-16

These words, in the final chapter of the history of Israel’s kingdom are an elegant theological summary of the centuries since King Solomon. The kingdom was about to end, but not because God is a short-tempered, thin-skinned, angry deity. That’s a myth invented and spread by people who simply haven’t read or understood the Old Testament. Quite the opposite…

The long centuries of the kingdom and the words of the writing prophets are proof of God’s long-suffering patience, love, mercy, and compassion. For 400 years, Israel and Judah had radically rebelled against God, mocking and abusing His messengers, while delighting in the pursuit of false gods, social injustice, and empty, hypocritical worship.

God truly is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, while perfect in justice. The Old Testament is an extended demonstration of God’s beautiful nature. Time and again, He spoke through the prophets to try and bring His people back to covenant faithfulness. Time and again, He used measured discipline, including natural disasters and enemy empires, to try and bring His people back to covenant faithfulness. Through it all, God was far more gracious than the covenant required Him to be. Nonetheless, in the end, it was only through exile and the destruction of Jerusalem that a small fraction of Israel finally turned back to covenant faithfulness. But they did turn back and God graciously restored them.

God is merciful and gracious by nature. He is extraordinarily patient with us in our stubborn foolishness and prideful rebellion. He did everything necessary to bring us back to Him by sending His Son Jesus into the world to take our sins upon Himself. He offers salvation as a gift of grace through faith in Jesus because that is His nature.

Understand these truths about your Father in Heaven. Rejoice in them but do not presume upon them. Do not scoff at the commands of Scripture, especially those that reveal your own sins and failings. Be quick to repent and turn back to His grace and mercy rather than taking advantage of them on the assumption that you can always turn back to Him “later”. #FollowJesus

“Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!
Yet God my King is from of old,
working salvation in the midst of the earth.”
– Psalm 74:11-12

This is the push and pull of faithful patience in the Lord. In a world in which evil, greed, cruelty, injustice, ungodliness, and oppression often seem to thrive, the children of God naturally long for the Lord to act decisively. We’re desperate to see Him act in the powerful, visible ways of old. To bring instant relief to the suffering and oppressed. To deliver swift, visible, satisfying justice to the wicked. We know that He is able and we wonder why He hasn’t yet.

We can grow frustrated at God’s “delay” in doing what we’d like to see Him do. We can begin to question or doubt Him in our minds. This is where our faith must ripen and mature into a patient faith. We must recognize, as the psalmist did, that God is eternal. Time works very differently for Him than it does for us. What seems far too long to us is but a moment to Him. He is already at work in every situation. He is working to bring salvation to those far from Him.

Salvation is the urgent work of the present day. Justice will certainly come. When it comes, it will be perfect and it will be eternal. However, it will come in God’s perfect timing rather than our flawed, impatient timing. And so, every believer, must become more like the psalmist. Not quick to deal in judgment and wrath, but trusting in both the Lord’s absolute power AND His perfect timing. #FollowJesus

“Now after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah’s dictation, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: ‘Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Judah has burned.’” – Jeremiah 36:27-28

Refusing to listen to God’s word doesn’t make it less true. Hating God’s word won’t stop His promises from coming true. Trying to destroy God’s word won’t prevent Him from preserving it for all mankind. The Bible is God’s inerrant, infallible word and nothing can stop it from spreading, though people certainly have tried over the centuries. The Bible will endure every effort to silence or suppress it.

Judah’s king hated the message God gave about him through Jeremiah. Rather than repent and change his evil ways, the king simply tried to destroy the book of Jeremiah. That accomplished nothing. God’s judgment is both perfectly just and inevitable. Each person has only two options: 1) reject God’s word and experience His judgment, or 2) embrace God’s Word, repent of their sins, and call on the Lord’s mercy in the name of Jesus. The wise will do the latter. The proud will do the former.

How do you respond when God’s word points out your remaining sins and shortcomings? Is it with a tender heart of repentance? Or do you try to explain away, excuse, defend yourself, rage, or resist God’s will and word? Let God’s word probe your soul every day, like a doctor probing an infected wound. Respond with life-altering conviction and confession whenever God’s Spirit uses His word to reveal a part of your life, heart, or character that doesn’t yet look like Jesus. #FollowJesus

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” – Jeremiah 29:11

This is, of course, an extremely famous and popular verse. However, its significance runs much deeper when it’s put in its proper context. This verse is part of a letter Jeremiah wrote to Jews who’d been forcibly taken into exile far away in Babylon. Dragged off to servitude in a pagan land, their lives had been completely upended. They assumed they had no future or hope. They believed they were beyond God’s reach and forever out of His plan.

However, what Jeremiah’s prophecies repeatedly revealed was that the exiles were actually the ones with a future. The people left behind in Jerusalem had none. They were hopelessly idolatrously sinful and doomed to destruction. Jerusalem would soon be destroyed. Their lives were nearing their end. Meanwhile, the exiles, the ones certain that God was finished with them, were those He was planning to bless. They would spend 70 years in exile and God would use that time to build their faith. The synagogue system would develop there in Babylon and be carried back to Israel when the exiles returned. Rather than surrender to despair, God sought to fill them with hope. They were the future of His people.

The promise of this verse was specific to those people. We can’t just grab it for ourselves. Nonetheless, it reveals how God works all things together for good, for those who love Him (Romans 8:28). That is absolutely a promise for every believer in Jesus. God can always use what seems like an utter disaster for your good and His glory. He can always take what feels like the end and turn it into the beginning of something new and better. For those in Christ, there is always a strong and certain hope. For those in Christ, there is absolutely a glorious and eternal future on the other side of any earthly crisis or disaster. God really does know the plans He has for you and they are good. #FollowJesus