HOW LONG SHALL I CRY AND THOU WILT NOT HEAR?

Habakkuk was perplexed by the problem of providence.

Does God really rule? Does He really care? Is He interested in what happens in the world? Disasters, international, national or personal, thrust these questions on God’s people still.

The poet’s words are so apt: ‘He hides Himself so wondrously, as though there were no God’, F. W. Faber.

In our verses, the heart of the prophet is wrung by unanswered prayer. Habakkuk had constantly been in God’s presence, crying out because of conditions in Judah. He had prayed, not out of self-interest, but with the true interests of the nation and God’s glory at heart. Yet, still, heaven was silent. Cruel, oppressive violence provoked his anguished prayers. Evil abounded. The wicked triumphed. Injustice prevailed. God’s law was ignored. Human justice, such as it was, was perverted. Despite all this, God did not bare His holy arm. No latter-day flood burst on Judah, Gen. 6. 11. In the face of wickedness, God was in active. In the face of prayer, God was indifferent. So, it seemed to Habakkuk. So often his bafflement is ours.

From his heart cry we learn:

1. Persistence in Prayer. Habakkuk had persevered in his cries. His very persistence increased his distress. There was still no answer from the Lord, though he’d prayed so long. Yet he didn’t give up. He kept on praying. God may well delay His answers to produce in us the persistence in prayer He prizes. Keep on praying, Luke 18. 1-8; Eph. 6. 18.
2. Concern in Prayer. Habakkuk brought national needs and contemporary concerns to the Lord. There was a real depth and breadth in his prayers. He felt passionately the evil of his days. Do we mourn the violence and immorality of our society, the apostasy and ineffectiveness of the church, in prayer? Are we zealous for God’s glory? Be earnest in prayer.
3. Honesty in Prayer. Habakkuk spilled out his emotions, and his frustrations to the Lord. Do we ever pray like that? God invites us to pour out our heart before Him, Ps. 62. 8. What a recourse! Be genuine in prayer.