How to pray, Habakkuk-style
Confident and expectant
Reading time: 4 mins
Hello! I hope youāre keeping well and that your week has been a little less chaotic than mine. Work has me running across the country, and Iām really looking forward to being home again, going into the office, and getting to leave on time. Talk about appreciating something when itās gone!
Iāve been feeling challenged lately to improve my prayer time. A couple of resources (sermons, podcasts, newsletters) have combined to give me that yearning for abiding in the Lord. I want to experience the Holy Spirit again, listening to His voice in whatever situations I encounter. The first step to abiding is to pray, and Iāve been woefully forgetful of prayer in the last couple of months. So Iām spending some time thinking about prayer and how I can enjoy it again.
Does God hear my prayer?
Sometimes it seems as if my prayers are bouncing off the ceiling.
In theory, I know that God is all-powerful and all-knowing; I know that He hears every prayer and is working in all things. But it can often be difficult to feel these truths.
Iām encouraged by the prophet Habakkuk, who struggled to understand what God was doing in raising up the wicked Babylonians to punish disobedient Israel.
Habakkuk models a posture of prayer
The book of Habakkuk is unique because instead of addressing the people as the other prophets do, Habakkuk records his conversation with God.
At first, he cries out to God about the injustice in Judah. But when God reveals that He will use Babylon ā āthat bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their ownā (Habakkuk 1:6, ESV) ā he laments the agent of judgment God has chosen to judge Judah.
He cannot understand how a holy God can use a corrupt nation for His purposes. Babylon is morally āworseā than Judah.
Itās never a good idea to compare our (un)righteousness to others. None of us lives up to Godās standards. But the aspect of this book that resonated most with me was Habakukkās attitude to prayer.
Habakkuk 2:1 models a posture of prayer which I think is helpful.
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 2:1 ESV).
After presenting his request to God, Habakkuk patiently waits for a response. He is confident that God will reply to him and is willing to wait for His answer.
Do we pray expectantly and patiently?
How many of us can say that we pray both expectantly and patiently?
I often struggle to believe that there is a purpose to my prayer. Iām not confident that God hears or will respond. Other times, I wrestle with accepting His timing in things I would prefer an immediate answer to. I am neither expectant nor patient.
But I have found great comfort in learning Godās promises, and remembering what He has already done for me and for others. As I study the Bible and learn Godās character, I become confident that He is good.
What God has spoken will come to pass (Numbers 23:19), He promises to strengthen and help us (Isaiah 41:10), He rejoices when sinners come home to Him (Luke 15:7) and He forgives us our sins when we confess (1 John 1:9). What a great and gracious God we serve!
God responds to Habbakuk and says: āThe righteous shall live by his faith,ā (Habakkuk 2:4, ESV).
Faith looks outside ourselves to God. By faith, we can continue to trust in God and cling to His promises even when it is difficult to see what He is doing.
We can be confident in Godās goodness
Iām reminded of the song by Andrew Peterson, āAlways Good.ā Peterson wrestles - like many of us - with the fact that itās often hard to know what God is doing. Yet because of His revealed character, we can be confident that God is always good.
Well it's so hard to know what You're doing
So why won't You tell it all plain?
But You said You'd come back on the third day
And Peter missed it again and again
So maybe the answer surrounds us
But we don't have eyes to see
That You're always good, always good
This heartache is moving me closer than joy ever could
And You're always good
(Always Good, Andrew Peterson)
Even though he didnāt understand Godās plans, Habakkuk was able to reach a place of confidence in the Lordās goodness, so that at the end of his book he says:
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vinesā¦yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17ā19, ESV).
It is good and right for us to lay down our concerns before the Lord. Jesus tells us to go and unburden ourselves to Him (Matthew 11:28). And when we pray, we can be confident that He hears us and that He will respond.
So I will stand with Habbakuk on the watchtower and wait for the Lord, confident of His response and sure of His goodness.
What Iām reading
The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman. Iām definitely late to this party, but I heard great things about this book all through the pandemic, and have finally started to read it myself. Itās a murder mystery, which is always a winning premise in my eyes, but the investigative squad is a group of pensioners in an old-age home. Iāve just started it but itās highly entertaining thus far!