This week was Youth Takeover at City Central! Recent high school graduate and Legacy student leader, Lakiyah, brought the Word from Habakkuk. We spend a lot of time waiting and asking the Lord to move, and we learned from Habakkuk that God is gracious with our questions and ready with a plan. In these seasons of waiting, we can look to God’s character, remember His faithfulness and allow Him to change our character.
Statistics on waiting:
• The average person spends 2-3 years in their lifetime waiting in line
• 43 days on hold with customer service
• 27 days waiting for a bus
• Two weeks of your lifetime waiting on a red light
In this life- we are always waiting on something; waiting for a pot of water to boil, the end of our work shift, a new season… etc.
Habakkuk was a prophet after the fall of Judah. He was deeply troubled by the spiritual decline of God’s promised people and waited for the Lord to intervene.
Habakkuk’s first complaint before the Lord
Habakkuk 1:2-4
“O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
3 Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4 So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.”
- God seemed inactive in the midst of Habakkuk’s problem even though Habakkuk was calling to Him for help.
Habakkuk 1:5
“Look among the nations and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.”
- Habakkuk came to the Lord with a complaint and God assured him He already had a plan.
Habakkuk’s second complaint:
Habakkuk 1:12-13
“Are you not from everlasting,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.
13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
the man more righteous than he?”
- Habakkuk questioned God’s plan but also remembered God’s character.
Habakkuk 2:1
“I will take my stand at my watchpost
and station myself on the tower,
and look out to see what he will say to me,
and what I will answer concerning my complaint.”
- Habakkuk commits himself to getting an answer from God.
AND THEN… God reminds the prophet that his timing is perfect, and that justice will come to fruition.
Habakkuk 2:3
“For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.”
- After going back and forth with God Habakkuk still didn’t understand God’s ways, but the book ends with prayer expressing his trust in God even in the midst of doubts and difficulties.
Habakkuk 3:2-6
“O Lord, I have heard the report of you,
and your work, O Lord, do I fear.
In the midst of the years revive it;
in the midst of the years make it known;
in wrath remember mercy.
3 God came from Teman,
and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah
His splendor covered the heavens,
and the earth was full of his praise.
4 His brightness was like the light;
rays flashed from his hand;
and there he veiled his power.
5 Before him went pestilence,
and plague followed at his heels.[a]
6 He stood and measured the earth;
he looked and shook the nations;
then the eternal mountains were scattered;
the everlasting hills sank low.
His were the everlasting ways.”
Habakkuk 3:17-19
“Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
19 God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.”
God moves in the waiting
- Habakkuk was waiting on something to change with the state of Judah. Meanwhile, God was already working a plan together Habakkuk couldn’t see.
- God is not stagnant but is constantly working on our behalf.
James 1:5
“If any of you lacks wisdom let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
We also miss the bigger picture because sometimes we don’t see God moving in what is right in front of us, we forget that He is putting pieces together to complete a bigger picture.
Our character is built in the waiting
- Habakkuk committed himself to getting an answer from God. If he saw that God wasn’t doing things the way he wanted and then gave up, he would not have found himself trusting God in the end. He leaned into the tension- he asked God questions which then refined his character and his faith in the Lord.
- He concluded that God really is who he says he is.
- Even in his doubt Habakkuk leaned on God not on his own strength.
- How often do we strive in our own strength to make things happen because we are too impatient to wait on God?
This leads to anxiety, striving and hopelessness.
Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
If we didn’t have to walk through seasons of waiting, we wouldn’t learn to rely on God.
We were created to be dependent on Him.
God’s character does not change
- Even in his doubt, Habakkuk remembered who God was.
- We must let the Word dictate our view of God, not our own understanding or circumstances.
• The Israelite spies in Numbers 13 knew God’s character and allowed it to change their view of their circumstance, not the other way around.
Numbers 14:8
“If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us.”
- If you don’t have a good grasp on who God is and believe it with all your heart, then when trials and tribulations come your view of God will be skewed.
Hebrews 13:8
“ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
God is a God of the journey
- We often see waiting as a punishment, wanting to rush to the next thing or new season. However, we miss the bigger picture of what God is trying to do in us.
“I am sure that God keeps no one waiting unless he sees that it is good for him to wait.”
C.S Lewis
- Waiting is a test of our faith.
James 1:2
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. “
- Trust looks like surrendering in faith; a settled, confident trust in God based on His character and His promises.
Discussion Questions:
- What are you currently waiting on God for? For example, to see a word spoken to you come to fruition? For a family member to be saved? To be delivered from a hard season?
- Can you identify with Habakkuk’s confusion about God’s silence during tumultuous times?
- Have there been instances in your life where you questioned God’s plan, much like Habakkuk did?
- What does it mean to put your full trust in God in the waiting?
Application Questions:
- This week, bring to mind some things you are waiting for. Take time to remember who God is even in the waiting, and what God is teaching you.
Join us for an in-person service at City Central Church in Tacoma, WA
Sundays at 9am + 11am