The Prophet Habakkuk knew a little something about waiting on God. Although his story is one from thousands of years ago, the lessons his story teaches are still relevant today. Especially today in our drive-through culture.

Most of us hate to wait. Waiting takes patience, and patience is a virtue that can be in short supply. We expect to get our food and internet at lightning speeds, and when we don’t, we become anxious and sometimes a bit testy. We tend to treat God with this same impatience. We want God to be a drive-through God, a God who gives us what we want when we want it and how we want it.

When God doesn’t answer our prayers when or how we expect Him to and we have to wait, we grow impatient. We often try to run ahead of Him and take things into our own hands, which rarely ends with good results.

What if, instead of hating the waiting, we learned to embrace the wait and to recognize that it is in the wait that we find God?

Habakkuk’s name means “one who embraces.” Habakkuk lived in Judah around 600 years before Christ was born. Judah was in spiritual and moral decline. Corruption and injustice were everywhere. What was happening in Judah was not much different than what is happening in our world today. When we read Habakkuk 1:2-4, we could be talking about our world right now. Habakkuk described Judah like this:

How long, O LORD, will I call for help, And You will not hear? I cry out to You, “Violence!” Yet You do not save. Why do You make me see iniquity, And cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me; Strife exists and contention arises. Therefore the law is ignored And justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore justice comes out perverted.

Habakkuk was heartbroken about what was going on in Judah: he had been crying out to God for his people over and over again. He wanted to know WHEN God was going to do something about the corruption and injustice in his country. Sound familiar?

“How long oh Lord?” At one time or another, most of us have asked God that very same question. WHEN God, are you going to do something about that? All of us have a “that.” Every day on the news, there is a “that.” Some of us work with or live with a “that.” COVID-19 is a that. When Lord are you going to do something about that?

 God didn’t answer Habakkuk’s prayers in the way he wanted or expected. God said:

“Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days— You would not believe if you were told." Habakkuk 1:5

If I heard that from God, I would be saying, GO GOD GO! Do it, God! Do it! But then, in the rest of Chapter 2, God tells Habakkuk what it is He is actually going to do. And, it wasn’t what Habbakuk wanted or expected.

God said He would raise the evil nation of Babylon in judgment against Judah.

That was God’s answer.

God was going to use the wicked to judge Judah.

Habakkuk was beside himself.

He continued to question God. He wanted to know why God was answering his prayer in this way. He wanted to know how long God planned to allow Babylon to continue its evil without judgment, without consequence. Babylon was conquering nation after nation; they seemed to be unstoppable. The bad guys were winning, and Habakkuk wanted to know why. Habakkuk’s “that” was Babylon. When God are you going to do something about “that”?

Habakkuk wrestled with honest questions, not because he didn’t believe in God’s goodness or His sovereignty, but because He didn’t understand why God was doing what He was doing. He truly wanted to know God’s heart. And He was willing to wait on God. But how? How did he do it? How did his faith remain strong in the middle of his wait?

HABAKKUK POSITIONED HIMSELF TO HEAR GOD’S ANSWER

Habakkuk decided what he’d do in Habakkuk 2:1

I will stand on my guard post
And station myself on the rampart;
And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me,
And how I may reply when I am reproved.

Habakkuk positioned himself like a guard on a watchtower on the city’s edge. The watchtower is high up where the guard’s view can’t be easily obstructed. The guard can see what is coming. Notice, Habakkuk said, “I will stand and watch to see what He will speak to me.” He made a deliberate choice to position himself in a place where he had an unobstructed view to WATCH AND WAIT for God.

HABAKKUK DID NOT LEAVE HIS POST

If a guard on a watchtower abandoned his post, the city could be lost. A guard stays on his post no matter what.

Let me put it this way: Have you ever been in a long line at Walmart, a cart full of groceries, waiting to check out, and then the cash register light starts blinking? There is a problem with the cash register. You wait, wait, wait and feel your impatience welling up inside you. You then ask yourself, “do I wait or do I go”? At that moment, you have a choice: you can abandon your cart and not get what you came to the store for, or you can wait. If you quit your post, you know that eventually, the line will clear, you will check out, and you will leave with what you came for. Do you wait or do you go?

Don’t abandon your post just because you don’t feel like waiting, it’s too hard, or you don’t sense God’s presence. Don’t leave without taking away what you came there for. God is there. HE IS IN THE WAITING.

Habakkuk knew this. He knew that God heard his questions. He knew that God isn’t silent, distant, or dismissive. God has something to say to ANYONE willing to listen and to WAIT for his reply.

How often do we pray to God but not POSITION ourselves to hear his voice? We stay on ground level, letting our position interfere with our perception. Or maybe we climb up the watchtower, but we abandon our post before we hear His answer?

Habakkuk positioned himself to hear God and did not abandon his post. And guess what, God eventually answered.

NOT NOW BUT AT THE APPOINTED TIME

Habakkuk had been having a dialogue with God. His last question to God was, “God what are you going to do about my that? The evil Babylonians?”

God answered in Habakkuk 2:2-4:

Then the LORD answered me and said, “Record the vision And inscribe it on tablets, That the one who reads it may run. For the vision is yet for the appointed time; It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come, it will not delay. “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.

Here God speaks to Habakkuk and says, I’ve heard your cries, and I WILL answer your prayer. Get out your pen and paper; I want you to write the answer down. Are you ready for it…? Here’s the answer, … YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT.

Wait? That is not the answer Habakkuk wanted to hear. God is saying to Habakkuk that he will judge Babylon; he will answer Habakkuk’s prayer, JUST NOT NOW, but at the “appointed time”.

“YOU HAVE TO WAIT. ” That is not what we want to hear either.   Not in our drive-through, lightning speed culture. Some of us are waiting right now. We are waiting for the money to come in, waiting for a husband, waiting for the child to return to the faith. Some of us are waiting on depression or anxiety to lift.

When Lord will you do something about my “that”? Here’s God’s answer: “at the appointed time.”

The Hebrew word for the appointed time is “MOW’ed. It literally means the unstoppable time of God. We know from the story of Abraham and Sara, that if it is not God’s time you can’t force it. God had promised Abraham that he would have a son. They tried for ten years, becoming more and more impatient. They were tired of waiting, so they decided to take things into their own hands. Sarah convinced Abraham to sleep with her servant, Hagar, who gave Ishmael birth. But Ishmael wasn’t the child God promised. Sarah and Abraham did not wait for the appointed time. They ran ahead of God, believing they knew what was best. They didn’t. As a result, there was heartbreak for everyone involved.

Sarah and Abraham faced a situation that seemed hopeless. Sarah was way past her childbearing years and even laughed at the idea of having a son. But God responded to her laughter by saying in Genesis 18:14 “Is anything too difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

What seemed unthinkable to Sarah was possible for God. But He promised that this miracle would take place not just at any time but at the appointed time. And it did. Sarah conceived and had Isaac. God did just what he said he’d do when he said he would do it, at the appointed time.

At the appointed time, God will deliver. At the appointed time, he will respond. At the appointed time, he will do his perfect will. YOU HAVE TO WAIT

IF GOD TELLS YOU TO WAIT, WILL YOU STILL TRUST HIM?

This was a crossroads for Habakkuk. And for many of us too. Would he trust God? Would he live by faith even when he knew he had to wait?

In verse 4, God told Habakkuk that the “righteous will live by faith.”

This means we trust God even when we feel we shouldn’t.

This means we trust God when He does and when He doesn’t. When He says yes and when He says no.

This means that we trust God’s heart, even when we can’t see His hand.

We don’t live by what we see; we live by what God says. We live by His Word.

When we want to know what God says about our “that,” we climb up the watchtower on the WORD of God so we can POSITION ourselves to see things from His perspective. From higher up.

It takes faith to climb up.

It takes faith to not abandon our post.

It takes faith to WAIT.

Habakkuk did all of these things. He decided to watch, and to wait, and to live by faith. The book of Habakkuk ends with him saying:

Even though the fig trees have no fruit and no grapes grow on the vines, even though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no grain, even though the sheep all die and the cattle stalls are empty, I will still be joyful and glad, because the LORD God is my savior. The Sovereign LORD gives me strength. He makes me sure-footed as a deer and keeps me safe on the mountains. Habakkuk 3:17-19

Habakkuk worshiped God while he waited. Habakkuk knew that there in the wait, He’d find God. That God would act at the appointed time. And God did in fact, do exactly what he said He’d do. Babylon fell. The evil were judged, at the appointed time.

God’s time is always the right time.

THE UNSTOPPABLE TIME OF GOD

God sent Jesus into the world at just the right time. Not a minute too soon or too late. God is sending you this message of encouragement today at just the right time. So instead of hating the waiting, embrace the wait because it is in the wait we find Jesus. That is a PROMISE.

Jesus said, seek me and you shall find me if you seek me with all your heart. He is there. He is in the wait.

I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.  Psalm 27:13-14