Though and Yet

It’s easy to skip over old books in the Bible where we don’t expect to find an answer to our today stuff.  But if we glean through the rubble, we’ll find jewels. There is always an answer to be found . . . faith.

It’s all about then and now . . . though and yet.

A small book that has encouraged my faith is Habakkuk.  Only three chapters. (Not hard to find, go to Nahum and make a right).  The prophet begins in chapter one “How long O Lord will I call for help?”  He challenges God with questions.  The context tells he was surrounded by wickedness, violence, the law was ignored and justice was perverted.  It’s like he wrote it today on his coffee break.

Chapter two starts out with him saying he will keep watch to see what God will speak to him.  Silence. And then the Lord answered this way,  Write the vision down, inscribe it on tablets  . . . 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.  This strong scripture taught me how to journal while it taught me how to wait. It’s the center square in my testimony quilt made over thirty years ago for my youngest son.  I cling to it like the Hem. Within those many years I’ve seen it fulfilled over and over.  And we’ll see it again because faith grows in the wait.

 In this century, maybe we don’t give a fig if our olive tree fails or our flock is cut off, but we all have a THOUGH that is failing or has been cut away.  And we all have an opportunity to rejoice.

Chapter three reveals in the course of these few chapters how the prophet went from an angry questioning Habakkuk to a humbled Habakkuk who realized it was only God who lifted him and gave the sure steps to walk it out.  Because we live by faith, not answers.

Habakkuk chapter three

3:17 Though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vines ~Though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food. ~Though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls

 3:18 YET I will exult in the Lord ~ I will rejoice in the God of my salvation ~ The Lord is my strength and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet ~ And makes me walk in high places. 

We aren’t too different from an ancient one learning to rejoice in the midst of asking ~ we need to have a Habakkuk 3:18 faith in a Habakkuk 3:17 kind of world.

And so, yet I will rejoice and I pray you will also . . .