Back in 2022, I wrote some posts which touched on one of my favorite Old Testament prophets, the sensitive, justice-loving, heartsick, singer-songwriter (I think), Habakkuk. (He mentions his stringed instruments in chapter three, verse nineteen.)
The writer of the fifth to the last book in our Old Testament was a contemporary of Jeremiah, and a lot like his more famous colleague. Both of them were deeply grieved by the condition of the Judah of their day: apostate, unjust, immoral, violent and materialistic.
Habakkuk followed current events and it made him sick. He cried out to God, wondering when God was going to punish His straying, chosen people – who seemingly hadn’t learned a thing since the destruction of Israel to the north, just over one hundred years earlier.
It’s an incredible three-chapter book that is worth your time and attention. For this post I want to share a three-step process – derived from Habakkuk – to talk yourself down off the wall when the news is terrible (which is any day you choose to look at it).
(1) Begin with silence. Chapter two, verse twenty is one of the key verses of the book:
“But the LORD [Yahweh] is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him.”
These words were spoken by God, derisively mocking pagan idolatry, contrasting Himself to useless, wooden or stone images. God is in a temple in heaven – described earlier in Isaiah chapter six – and He is so “large and in charge” that He doesn’t even have to come down to the earth, like some flustered king rushing to the battlefront because his armies are failing. God is seen as calmly directing world events for His own perfect purposes.
Our only reasonable response to His majesty is a profound silence. Like Peter, being hushed on the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17:5 ), like the subject kneeling before the queen, like the juvenile standing at attention before the angry school principal, some situations call for our silence, in contrast to our whining, complaining, posting, ranting and cursing. Silence.
(2) Remember the kingdom. Chapter two, verse fourteen is another of the key verses of the book:
“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD [Yahweh] as the waters cover the sea.”
Certainly, this is a reference to the upcoming, glorious, Kingdom of God on earth, the over-arching vision of all Bible writers. However unjust this world is today (see Habakkuk 1:2-4), however violent it is, however immoral its people are in 2024, however hostile most of the world remains toward its rightful King, Jesus Christ, there will be a day when the earth will be covered – like a flood – with the knowledge of the glory of the one and only true and living God.
Everyone will know about the one true God. Everything wrong will be made right. Every injustice will be punished quickly (and justly). Every conflict will be resolved. The perfect government of God will give us nothing to complain about. Even the news will be glorious!
You can talk yourself down off the wall by silencing yourself before God and taking some time to remember the coming Kingdom. But you can’t sit there in your comfortable chair forever, so you’ll need to get up and…
(3) Walk on, in faith. Chapter two, verse four is so important that it’s quoted three times in the New Testament:
“See, he [probably, the Babylonian king] is puffed up; his desires are not upright – but the righteous will live by his faith -”
To be puffed up, like the Babylonian who boasts of his strength and worships his weapons of war (Habakkuk 1:13-17), to live in a posture of pride and arrogance before God, our maker and rightful lord, is a formula for destruction.
True believers, by contrast, by way of a miracle of God, have humbled themselves before God. They have fled for refuge to the saving God and found abundant mercy and grace – unmerited favor and help.
We will be grieved and frustrated and infuriated by injustice. We will not always understand what God is “up to.” We will sometimes be baffled by His ways. Will He use some nation to crush the United States? Perhaps. But the only alternative to living by faith is to live some disfigured version of a “Christian life” in a puffed up, angry and arrogant manner that makes us useless for God.
To talk yourself down off the wall when the news is terrible (any time you consume it), begin with silence, remember the coming Kingdom. and walk on in faith.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
(1) How do YOU typically respond when the news is terrible?
(2) Thinking about your church’s culture, how would you say your church collectively responds to the injustice, immorality, violence, strife, conflict and lawlessness (Habakkuk 1:2-4) found in the news? Possibilities include: denial, acquiescence, anger, self-righteous indignation, compassionate action, prayer, trust in God, etc.
(3) Does your church value and promote the value of worshipful silence before God, or is it generally active, “noisy,” or impatient?
(4) Do you long for the return of the King and the inauguration of his Kingdom or are you pretty focused on this life? (See Colossians 3:1-4, II Timothy 4:8, II Peter 3:11)
(5) With your group, discuss the picture of evangelism as found in I Peter 3:13-16. How would this look in your life in your workplace, or other venue where you rub shoulders with non-Christian people?
