The Habakkuk Connection


Habakkuk.

A very small (and I’m sure often overlooked) book of the Bible, it has only three chapters and a total of 56 verses.  Compared to the book of Psalms, which has 150 chapters and 2,461 verses, it is a minor player…however, last Sunday I felt God very clearly tell me to “read it.”

At the time of the writing, the Babylonians were ruling Israel and Habakkuk’s laments focused on “why” and for “how long”.  

In chapter three, however, Habakkuk declares, “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.” - Habakkuk 3:16-18.  

Those verses reminded me of ones Paul said in Philippians 4:12-13 when he claimed to have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation… and in both places in my Bible I have written the word “gratitude”.

Gratitude, I concluded, seems to be the key to happiness.

And then, lo and behold, the sermon later Sunday morning was on gratitude, and the minister echoed my conclusion...  I took it to be a “God wink”, and was happy that I had heard Him.

Then, later that night we were still trying to catch up on episodes of “The Chosen” and in the last episode of season three the episode began and ended with King David listening to a recitation of Psalm 77. 

At one point the orator said this, “The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and writhed; the very depths were convulsed.  The clouds poured down water, the skies resounded with thunder, your arrows flashed back and forth.” (Psalm 77:16-17) and I thought, “Didn’t I read something like that just this morning?”

Sure enough, Habakkuk 3:9-10 has virtually the same language and, in my Bible at least, the two are even cross referenced.

I smiled. 

I think those two “winks” were God’s way of letting me know He is always speaking to us - if only we would just listen.

“Whoever has ears to hear let him hear…” - Matthew 11:15

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