Dear Friends,
When I awoke in the pre-dawn light the outside temperature was 18 degrees below zero. The forecast tells me that on Saturday night the low temp will be minus-27. Church might be iffy, since I am a man of little faith that my vehicles will actually start.
Maybe I shouldn’t have talked about the weather last week.
If I was of a mind to be depressed, there is no shortage of reasons to be. In fact, there is a market glut of fuel for pessimism that goes way beyond the weather. A President’s impeachment trial and all of the utterly predictable (and, frankly, boring) partisanship on both sides. Another New York Times journalist ousted by the woke mob because he once had a conversation with high school students about racial slurs and an offending word escaped his lips—and not as a slur! A popular actress fired from a hit show for a Tweet deemed “abhorrent” and “offensive.”
Oh, and the most popular Christian apologist in the world is now posthumously exposed by his own ministry as a serial and unrepentant sexual predator.
Other than that, how was your day?
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!
Feet Like a Deer
I recommend Habakkuk for times like these.
That’s one of those neglected little books we know as the Minor Prophets. It’s best known for Habakkuk’s prayer at the end about rejoicing in the LORD even though calamity strikes. But we should really start at the beginning of the book.
Habakkuk brings a complaint to God. “How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?” He describes the plight: Violence! Injustice! Strife! Conflict! Wickedness! Perversions of legal justice! It’s everywhere! God, do something!
Sounds rather relevant, doesn’t it?
God answers—and I’ll paraphrase: Okay. Stand back and watch. I’m going to take care of all that. I’m sending in the Babylonians, who are a notoriously “ruthless and impetuous people” (1:6); they’ll have no trouble destroying the people you’re complaining about.
Habakkuk: (Very respectfully) Really? Maybe you misunderstood. That’s… not what I was asking for. “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?” (1:13). In other words, how can you, the righteous LORD, use the Babylonians? They’re even worse! How is this supposed to help?
God: Fine. Write this down. I’ll tell you my plans. After I use the Babylonians to judge you, I’m going to utterly destroy that arrogant, greedy, violent, and bloodthirsty Babylonian Empire. “Now it is your turn! Drink and be exposed! The cup from the LORD’s right hand is coming around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory” (2:16).
It’s at this that Habakkuk “stands in awe” of the LORD’s deeds and implores: “in wrath remember mercy” (3:2). “I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled” (3:16). Habakkuk knows and affirms that God will keep his promises to deliver his people and to save his anointed one (3:13), even while recognizing that this deliverance will come through judgment.
He says:
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.
Let me make a few observations, starting with an important caveat that too many forget: America is not God’s covenant people, and this prophecy is not directly about us. The text has its primary significance in its unveiling of God’s particular dealings with Israel and his ultimate fulfilling of his promises to her and to his “Anointed One.” But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t tell us something very real and very true about God and his dealings with nations.
Let’s just pretend for a moment, for the sake of argument, that this was directly applicable to 21st century American Christians. In other words, let’s put the matter in the strongest terms. I see evangelicals mistakenly doing this all the time with 2 Chronicles 7:14:
If my people [subtext: of the United States of America] who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
It’s a great meme, and looks good as needlework on a pillow. So, now I’m talking to you, concerned American Evangelical Christian. You cry out to God about the religious and cultural apostasy you see around you. You lament increasing injustice and sexual immorality and human trafficking; you cry out for the unborn; you’re angered at shrinking spheres of religious liberty, of being called bigots and “phobes” and worse. “How long, O LORD!?” you cry.
Do you have in your inventory of imagination… the Babylonians? Do you assume that the answer to your prayers will be a widespread revival, or a political victory, the failure of your persecutors? I watched the prayer warriors at the post-election “Jericho” marches, praying to Almighty God, quoting 2 Chronicles, blowing shofars, and pleading for (actually, no: prophesying) success—success measured, of course, by the political prospects of their favored candidate. I suspect that, like Habakkuk, they never considered that God’s answer to their prayers might be something even worse.
God is not to be messed with. He is not a Genie, bound to grant us our three wishes. He is not a Sky Butler, delivering our desires on a silver platter. In fact, that’s exactly what God says to Habakkuk:
Or what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? Or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’ Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it. But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him” (Hab. 2:20).
So that’s the first thing. God’s sovereignty is awesome and mysterious, and we all too blithely assume that our assessments and our agendas and our solutions are his. Habakkuk was a real prophet of God, and God rather shockingly enlightened him on this topic. “You want help? Okay, ISIS is on the way.” But we’ve had an awful lot of pretend prophets loudly proclaiming that God’s grace and blessing and prosperity is just around the corner—because, of course, that just has to be God’s answer to our cultural plight. Right? Think twice before answering that. And keep silent before the LORD.
[Note to all would-be prophets and prosperity gospel preachers: generally speaking, if you want to identify the false prophet in the Bible, find the guy prophesying that certain blessing and bounty is just around the corner.]
The second thing is that our optimism should not be based on present circumstances. Habakkuk’s optimism, his hope, the source of his joy, is not found by looking around. Looking around all he sees is the injustice he’s lamenting in the first verses of his complaint. And shortly after that, if he looks around all he’s going to see is those evil Democra—sorry, Babylonians trampling everything. And it is precisely in those circumstances that he rejoices in the LORD. No figs, grapes, olives, livestock—razed to the ground by invaders. It’s in that sort of time that Habakkuk is “joyful in God my Savior.”
Finally, I’d encourage you to consider that we have a better vantage point than Habakkuk did, and thus we have far less excuse for our panic and anxiety. We stand, you see, on the other side of God’s ultimate rescue of his people and his Anointed One. We have seen the fulfillment of his promises. We know that all of God’s mysterious providences “work for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). How do we know that?
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also graciously give us all things?
Oh, that sure sounds like prosperity gospel stuff, doesn’t it? Read on:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced the neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:35-39)
That should put a spring in our step. Feet like a deer bounding up a mountain to the heights (Hab. 3:19)—a place of safety, perspective, vantage point, and wisdom.
I’m not saying we’re under judgment or are going to be imminently. I make no such attempts at prophecy. And I am not saying we shouldn’t continue to cry out to the Lord, or that we shouldn’t continue to engage our culture and society in our callings and spheres with all godly means at our disposal. I am saying that we have in Jesus an unshakeable confidence that transcends the moment, the bad days, the whole “evil” age dominated by sin and death. Our Lord has inaugurated his kingdom; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Rejoice in the LORD; be joyful in God your Savior.
Miscellany
Here are some pretty crazy Montana weather facts. Well, I haven’t verified any of them, but they ring true to my experience:
I’m not exactly a whiz-kid using Zoom, but thankfully I’ve avoided doing anything quite this embarrassing. This is a lawyer who accidentally showed up to argue a motion in Federal Court… as a cat. A must-watch:
My favorite thing is the opposing lawyer, who sits there like a stone-cold killer. Finally, he can’t suppress a smile.
Major League Baseball pitchers and catchers report to training camp in six days, which will go a long way to making everything right in the world. But, look: even if you’re not into baseball, you simply have to watch this guy trying to explain the game. It’s just brilliant:
I have had this exact same bewildering experience. But I was watching Cricket.
I’ll close it out with Trudy Poirier’s Song of Habakkuk, featuring yours truly on the guitar work. Have a wonderful weekend!