{"id":2432,"date":"2023-03-10T19:59:36","date_gmt":"2023-03-11T00:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2432"},"modified":"2023-03-10T19:59:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-11T00:59:36","slug":"habakkuk-316","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/10\/habakkuk-316\/","title":{"rendered":"Habakkuk 3:16"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.

Every day during this season of Lent we\u2019re looking at one of the \u201c3:16\u201d verses of the Bible, spotlighting some of the significant theological statements that happen to fall on the 16th<\/sup> verse of the third chapter of a number of Old and New Testament books.\u00a0<\/em>
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\u201cI heard and my heart pounded,\u00a0my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled.\u00a0 Yet I will wait patiently\u00a0for the day of calamity\u00a0to come on the nation invading us” (Habakkuk 3:16).
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It\u2019s disheartening to discover that walking with God isn\u2019t a walk in the park.
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Every now and then we find ourselves hanging on for dear life at the edge of an abyss.
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That was the experience of the prophet Habakkuk.\u00a0 He\u2019s famous for having a name that\u2019s hard to spell and hard to pronounce \u2013 and for writing poignantly about the hardest moment in his life.\u00a0 Israel was about to be invaded.\u00a0 Habakkuk\u2019s world was caving in.\u00a0 Everything safe and predictable was vanishing.
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Bible scholar N.T. Wright points out that the land of Israel is a small country.\u00a0 \u201cYou can walk its length, north to south, in a few days, and from its central mountains you can see its lateral boundaries, the sea to the west and the river to the east.\u201d\u00a0 Nevertheless, Israel has had an impact on world history that is far out of proportion to its size.
\u00a0
Wright observes, \u201cEvery 44 years out of the last 4,000, on average, an army has marched through it, whether to conquer it, to rescue it from someone else, to use it as a neutral battleground on which to fight a different enemy, or to take advantage of it as the natural route for getting somewhere else to fight there instead.\u201d
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So it\u2019s not surprising, in Habakkuk\u2019s day, that one of the world powers, Babylon, is closing in on his homeland.\u00a0 The prophet is distraught.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how he launches his book:
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How long,\u00a0Lord, must I call for help,<\/em>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, \u201cViolence!\u201d
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Why do you tolerate\u00a0wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence\u00a0are before me;
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0there is strife,\u00a0and conflict abounds. <\/em>(1:3-4)

Where is God in the middle of this disaster?
\u00a0
What Habakkuk comes to understand is that God is, quite literally, in the middle of this disaster.\u00a0 He has ordered Babylon to punish Israel.\u00a0 God is working out the next chapter of Israel\u2019s history, and working out the details of Habakkuk\u2019s personal history as well, in what seems for the moment like sheer injustice.\u00a0
\u00a0
After three chapters of spiritual wrestling, Habakkuk feels overwhelmed.\u00a0 Our \u201c3:16\u201d verse reveals the stress on his heart, lips, bones, and legs.\u00a0 This guy\u2019s whole body is a wreck.\u00a0
\u00a0
But he\u2019s not done with God.\u00a0 He will wait patiently for justice to be done.\u00a0 He closes his book with one of the Bible\u2019s most powerful expressions of trust:
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Though the fig tree does not bud<\/em>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and there are no grapes on the vines,<\/em>
though the olive crop fails<\/em>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and the fields produce no food,<\/em>
though there are no sheep in the pen<\/em>
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0and no cattle in the stalls,<\/em>
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,<\/em>
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I will be joyful in God my Savior.<\/em>
\u00a0
The Sovereign Lord is my strength;<\/em>
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,<\/em>
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0He enables me to tread on the heights <\/em>(3:17-19).
\u00a0
Several species of mammals are renowned for their uncanny balance on narrow ledges.
\u00a0
The red deer that is common to the Middle East has astonishing sure-footedness, especially along ridgelines that would terrify most people.\u00a0
\u00a0
The goats pictured here seem to have watched Spiderman <\/em>a few times too many.\u00a0 Do they fall from time to time?\u00a0 They do.\u00a0 But they are stunningly resilient, and quickly resume their climbing.
\u00a0
Habakkuk came to trust that God was able and willing to give him a vital gift:\u00a0 the ability to journey to life-threatening, peace-shattering places, yet to come back alive and tell the story.
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We weren\u2019t made for walks in the park.\u00a0 Our call is to go up on the heights.\u00a0
\u00a0
And to know that wherever we are being sent, God is walking before us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here. Every day during this season of Lent we\u2019re looking at one of the \u201c3:16\u201d verses of the Bible, spotlighting some of the significant theological statements that happen to fall on the 16th verse of the third chapter of a number of Old and New Testament books.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cI heard and my heart pounded,\u00a0my… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2433,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[571],"class_list":["post-2432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-316-verses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2432"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2434,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2432\/revisions\/2434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}