The Book of Habakkuk: The Nerd Out
- Jack Schull
- Jul 13
- 30 min read
Practical Application
Choose one of the following:
1. Start a "Watchtower Practice"
Identify one practice that helps you position yourself to hear from God (morning prayer, journaling, a weekly Sabbath, a physical place you can go, etc.)
Commit to doing it at least 3 times this week
2. Write It Down
Like God told Habakkuk to write down the vision, journal your current questions, complaints, or waiting-room situations
Write down what you know to be true about God's character, even if you don't feel it right now
3. Practice "Yet" Worship
Each day this week, identify something difficult in your life
Follow it with "yet I will rejoice in the Lord because..." and list something true about God's character or faithfulness
4. Share Your Story
Think of a time when you had to wait on God and He came through (even if differently than expected)
Share this story with someone this week to encourage them in their waiting
TRANSCRIPT:
Well, hey there. We are back with the latest episode of the Nerd Out. My name is Lyall. I am Jack.
We are looking at the book of Habakkuk today. Habakkuk. Depends on how you want to say it. Habakkuk. I've heard it both ways.
Psych reference. Love it. Never even seen the show. That was for you. My heart is warm right now.
Well, we're all warm. That's because there's still no air conditioning. Yes. And a fan that's just blowing, which is, you know, I will say pleasant enough for those of you who are not in the room. Uh, but it would be nicer to have air conditioning functioning again. Yeah. Sometime soon, Lord. Like, is this what French people feel like right now? Like the heat wave breaks across Europe? Oh, wait. I have seen commiserating with our
Yeah, I heard Montana hit like a hundred. Wow.
The uh two days ago I was like, "Good grief." That's true. Yeah. There's parts of the US, too, where they don't have cuz I know we did summer camps in San Diego a couple years. That's how we met was when you were youth pastor at Cassis and Yeah.
our worship team from the church at the time. Air there.
Nope. Yeah. It' get warm. And you're just like opening and hoping that a beach breeze would blow in and it did not always.
Yeah, those were fun times. They were.
So, good days.
Cal Baptist University and Pointl as well. The first Cal Baptist is the one that had the best waffle makers. So,just the best breakfast in general of any camp I've ever been to.
Actually, best food all around. It was really good. But anyway, still is really good.
That's what I've heard. Yeah. Like cuz I know Zona Youth Camp is there and still say that their breakfast two three years ago. three years ago.
Top notch for a camp experience. Top notch.
To be honest, it's a student union for right university.
But still, like you wouldn't expect that for the college kids to be that nice, that good.
Yeah, if I was in college, I think I'd almost go there just because of the food and the class. And you're in California, so you're close to the beach. But there
you go. Okay, rambling on. But rambling on.
ll right, let's take a look at the book of Habakkuk. We're coming up to the end of our minor prophet series. We're nearing the final stretch, I should say.
Yeah, we got your friend, our friend coming down in a couple weeks. Yep.
Um Landon McDonald, pastor up at Mission Church in Gilbert. You don't want to miss that. That'll be the the last Sunday. Two weekends.
26th, I think. Yeah. 26th. So, he'll be down to us through Hagi. Yep. Mhm.
So, yeah, it's been good. It's been encouraging to hear the feedback from uh many of you just how timely this has been. So, Mhm.
I think for us, it's always cool just on the leadership side that you pray and you think things through and you try to kind of survey people and get an idea of
where things are at and like what will serve people well. What do we need to do? And to see when you know like you
feel like you've listened to the Lord, you do something and then to see it land. It shouldn't surprise us. It doesn't necessarily surprise us, but it is encouraging.
Yeah.
On our pers like just from our perspective to see how speaking to you all through it. It's been fun. Like I know
you know you and I have taught maybe certain sermons out of passages. You did like we were just talking you did Habakkuk series 5 years ago.
Yeah.
Um so we jokingly said you know 30% of our people weren't even here. Um, and so
it's been fun going back through a section, uh, what you call the crunchy chapters, crispy pages of the Bible,
3:58crispy pages of the Bible that most people skip over or don't drill down into enough because maybe they don't know the historical context, which can
get confusing if if you don't study it enough, or you lose sight that it's poetry. Yeah.
And so because it's written as poetry, there's stuff that just doesn't make sense. Yeah.
So, Habakkuk, let's get to some takeaways and then we'll uh jump into I know there's a bit that you said you uh
didn't have time for that we get through and then got a hand just a couple questions. Not not too many today. Yep.
So, we'll see what happens here. We've got takeaways for you from Habakkuk.
Number one says, "Bring your questions and complaints to God. He's not offended by them. Biblical faith is honest faith,
not fake positivity." Takeaway number two says, "God is sovereign over history and our personal
stories." Even when circumstances seem out of control, God is directing things toward his purposes.
Number three says, "The righteous live by faith, not by sight." Faith means trusting God's character when we don't understand his ways.
Number four, worship is the anchor in the waiting room. We don't worship our circumstances. we worship our God.
Our last takeaway says, "God often does his best work in us during the waiting.
The gap between promise and fulfillment isn't wasted time." Of course, that reminds me. I even mentioned it to you.
It's a good summary.
You didn't uh you didn't even use Andrew Murray, the famous quote from him of waiting uh no, what does he say? Um, waiting on
God ascribes to God the glory of being all to us. Mhm. It's a famous one. Good one.
First heard that when Louis Gigglio shared that when we went and saw him at Catalyst West when he spoke there.
Gosh, that was I brought Chris Tomlin out and then Tomlin leads the song All to Us and debuts it and I'm just like this is one of my new favorite songs. It was just so good.
That was eight years ago. Nine. Oh, might have been 10. M 13 years ago because that was after you.
Really?
Yeah, man. Cuz we went to passion.
Okay. It was that many years ago and we were Yes. It was 16 years ago.
Dang it. Anytime you feel like you're younger.
So maybe you weren't at that and then you realized with me. I think I was there.
I feel like you were. I'm pretty sure I was.
Anyway, I remember going to Cat West a few different times. But anyway, yeah, moving on.
We even when I was like Habakkuk was 5 years ago. What? That catalyst was 16 years ago. What?
Cool. Now that we're old. All right, let's get a couple questions then we'll talk about uh what you trimmed and then we'll see if we have time for any more questions.
Um, Habakkuk, he brings his raw complaints, his questions directly to God rather than walking away in disappointment. Uh, and this is a great
question to start with. What prevents us from being that honest with God in our own waiting seasons?
I don't know if it's a a hesitancy
because we feel like maybe we can't be raw and real with God, which I still think is somewhat of our
image management. like we're so bent in our culture uh of trying to manage our image that that maybe we feel like we
have to manage it before God even though he sees us uh Ron real and knows everything about us and knows about our
thought life that we don't even say out loud and like so I think there's a hesitation that maybe a sense of um the
unhealthy side of shame of like I can't be raw or real with God or a religious
this filter that says, "Hey, I've got to act like I have it more together than um
to be this or if if I say too much, will God smite me or will his punishment?"
It's like when you're a kid and you're irritated with your parents and you talk back a little bit and you're kind of
like, "How far can I go with talking back? How how far can I push this?" Um,
and yet and then maybe your parents have a temper that can flare up and and I've certainly had moments in my parenting journey where I have flared up and be
like, "Whoa, okay, that's too far. Cross the line." Um, and now you're in timeout
forever, whatever. But, um, I think God doesn't flare up. And that's our
humanity. our the brokenness of our humanity is we can flare up in a way his anger can get aroused the scripture says
um but even that's the the longsuffering of God doesn't want to get there wants his grace to be prominent
and so I think in that sense the the beauty of Habakkuk is that uh I mean the great thing is this is in the canon of
scripture these questions that he's asking weren't censored um like they weren't like okay that's too raw we
can't have that in there um and we can't be real and the beauty I think is is understanding most of the minor prophets
that we are looking at uh are speaking to God and speaking to the people on
God's behalf but Habach really is only conversing with God um it's not like he
was a prophet raised up to communicate okay here's God giving a message now go tell the people chapter 2. I was about to say, yeah, write it on the text.
So that um so that people could see it but in understanding that even then it was to be written in such a way that um
you may not fully understand it right now in this moment because this is a gap in the history. Babylon hasn't taken over Israel yet. They haven't been led
off into captivity because that's still 15 years awayish.
Um but yeah, so it it's that and that's we jokingly said, you know, Habakkuk goes up in this tower and he kind of has this
emo moment of um sulking stubbornness, kind of the holy stubbornness, which I
thought was a a great capturing of kind of probably what was in Habakkuk's mind and what's in your mind and my mind when
we're going through the challenges we're going through and we're not happy about it and we're frustrated. and irritated and it's confusing and we
don't understand and so we're letting God know and and I guess it's the invitation to know that we can be that real and that raw with God.
It's interesting to make the So there's two people who really in scripture ask some pointed questions and God responds to both of them.
Yeah. You've got Job, you've got Habakkuk, and maybe David in the Psalms, Job doesn't fully get the response from God that he wants.
God just kind of steps in and in a very sarcastic manner, just reestablishes, here's who I am. Have you done this? Have you done this? Have you done this?
But at least there's that hope that we can still bring our complaints to God in that way. God answers. And you see that
in Habakkuk. And maybe the difference is Habakkuk goes straight to God, whereas Job is kind of griping with his friends. Mhm.
And then there's like this back and forth. Yeah.
You know, David at least he took it straight to God. And you see, you know, Nathan comes and the prophet speaks and responds, you know, God has heard your prayers.
I just Yeah, it's interesting that and maybe drilling down on the idea you talked about with parents, you know, kids kind of like to test the boundaries.
Maybe our limitation or the reason we don't go to God is we know that if we were to go to our boss at work and just
fully vent, we may not have a job after that.
Uh you know, if you go to your parents fully vent, you're going to be grounded for a while. Mhm.
But is there something that may be helpful in us like to know that we can go to God and be real, but maybe we take
like I think it's good that God is to be feared and we want to respect him.
But doesn't it help us refine what we're saying to God if we think through what's going on and still find the respectful way to question God?
Yes. I think and that's Solomon in Ecclesiastes is you know I forget the
exact line but it's when you go to the temple um you know stay low and don't be
quick um to rush in the sense of that that awe that fear that reverence that
respect of who God is that that he is God and I'm not. Um, and so there is that remembrance, that understanding
that God's big, I'm little. And so there is a healthy side to the fear and reverence of God uh that we are to
maintain. And so that should maybe caution us to not be brazen
uh against God. But I think it's the invitation that we can come to God with our questions, with our complaints, with
our misunderstandings or our confusion that that he's the right place and right
person to do this. This is 1 Peter 5:7. I can cast my anxieties upon him
because he cares for me. And so I can bring my anxious thoughts. I can bring my confusing thoughts. I can bring my
irritating thoughts um to the one that is big enough to maybe help me get a different perspective because that's
what's going to unfold for Habakkuk is he's going to what he's praying for is revival. Um God bring revival and yet
actually what's going to happen is destruction. um and a long timeout um
basically for the people of God uh into captivity in 586 when Judah falls and Babylon captures it. So then they're
led off into captivity. That's the story of Daniel. All this kind of stuff. So the remnant will come back and that's we've looked at that a few weeks
ago. Um, but the reality is this is not an easy answer. And this is and that's kind of what God's telling him in his
first response is, "Behold, I'm doing something in your day that you wouldn't believe me if I told you. I'm raising up the Babylonians." And and that sets um Habach off into like, "Wait a minute.
Um, you're using a worse people, like the worst people on the planet right now um to bring judgment against us." And
the people who we talked about the brutality last week in Nahim of the Assyrians and the Babylonians the and specifically
the Caldanss put the brutality of the Assyrians to shame. Shame. Yeah.
I mean the Caldanss were the most feared. I mean they were once the Assyrians kind of
lost power of the whole region. M you know it was the Calaldanss who really established themselves as the dominant force for a short period of time.
Yeah. It's true. God smashes them. Like he takes them out. Like when you look at history like it's interesting to see how often we can trace the work of God
throughout Yeah.
history and see his sovereignty in the midst of that uncertainty, which is what I call the Habakkuk sermon series 5 years ago, by the way.
And there you go. Well, and the reality of okay, so the Babylonians are going to take over and then you got Nebuchadnezzar who goes wacko nuts,
loses it, and then gets humbled to the way that uh actually comes to be looks like a
believer in God in Yahweh. Um and then God begins to change that. So he begins to change a whole nation by
So that's kind of the line in uh Habakkuk 2, I think it's verse three. Um where it's
like, yeah, behold, uh the proud think they're going to get away with everything and there'll be a day of
reckoning for them. And then but the righteous will live by faith. Um, and that's the main crux of what Habach gets
to hear from God the second time of like, okay, uh, we're called to live by faith, which, uh, we didn't get a chance to camp on, so I don't know if we
want to go there now, but, um, I was about to ask about that.
Here to live by faith was so that that line from Habakkuk 2:4 uh, is called back
in Galatians and Romans and Hebrews. uh the authors will call to that in the New Testament. It's also what Martin Luther
in 1515 uh is so just a few years ago reading and dealing with the legalism of the
Catholic Church and his upbringing and all that kind of stuff and realizing, hey, there's so much looks
like corruption and pollution of the gospel in a way. And then he's reading through Romans trying to figure out
Paul's take, reads Habakkuk, and then begins to say, "Okay, no, we got to live by faith." And that leads to 1517. And
she nails the 95 thesis on October 31st in 1517 and the Reformation and the
beginning of the Protestant church uh in a lot of ways. So all of that coming from Habakkuk 24. Um
yeah, pretty crazy. like really the most important theological treatises in all of the New Testament. Like when you trace where it is in Romans and you look at where that's at in Hebrews.
Oh yeah.
In particular, those two in particular, like it's just who knew that this
emo prophet who the only like he just starts out with a prayer session. Right. Right.
And then suddenly God's like, "No, you're also going to be a prophet. Write this down. Make sure the people know about it." Mhm. And then so he does like who knew
that that that one little verse would have so much theological richness that would be used to and call millions of people to follow Christ.
I think um I have the quote from Martin Luther if you want me to read it. But so it's the verse Martin Luther read in
1515 that cracked open his theology. He writes in his journal. Uh this is the preface to the complete edition of Luther's Luton Latin writings. He writes
this um I greatly long to understand Paul's epistle to the Romans. Nothing stood in the way that was uh that one expression the justice of God. Night and
day I poured until I grasp the truth that the justice of God is that the righteous um by which through grace and
sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt upon myself reborn and I'm gone through the open
doors into paradise that it isn't about my works. Um it is about the faith. It's
about what God has said, not necessarily what I say or what I do. I have participation. That's my role is to be a
participant, but I'm not the solver of the reality of my salvation. I'm not the provider of my salvation.
I'm not the one who can manufacture my salvation. It's God who did that and he established it. And so,
right. Well, in that you talked and I love the quote, was it Oz Guinness? I think. Yeah. Yeah.
Faith is not believing in spite of evidence, but obeying in spite of consequence.
How's that definition changed the way that we approach living by faith?
Well, it's certainly the call to say I'm going to choose to be obedient to
God and who he is and what he says. um that I'm going to trust what he says and
I'm going to trust the way he says to live um better than my feelings and better
than maybe a cultural norm or a cultural narrative that's out there that seems like that'd be promising if I just try
that. No, God said actually here's the best possible way to way to live and I'm going to now choose to actually walk
in that in obedience. And when I mess up, I'll fess up and I'll get it right and I'll continue moving forward. And I
think that's the premise of despite what the consequences might be, that I'm going to choose to live in obedience to that.
Um, but curious your thoughts. Well, I just it's not about my thoughts.
I didn't preach this one. It's yours.
No, I mean I the way I'm thinking of or just kind of what was in my mind um is how during biblical times and really the
first hundred or so years uh after the early churches being established we have so many stories of
martyrs and like to me that's you people who were obeying in spite of consequence. Mhm.
So in our day and age where we want to be faithful to God and we want people to
you know and part of that is because we live in a country that has established freedom of religion.
So which is a beautiful the idea of freedom of religion separation of church and state really is saying that
our government cannot make an official national religion and as a result we have the freedom to worship however worship however we want. Mhm.
Um even if we choose that we don't want to worship, right?
You know, so like we want to see that protected. I think it should be protected. Absolutely. And for anyone of any religion.
Yeah. But because of that, I think in some ways we think that we should be given the freedom to worship without any sort of consequence.
And in this, you know, that you've got consequences sometimes that because I'm following after Christ, I'm going to
choose to not do certain things and that's going to get me I'm going to be ostracized. Mhm.
And that doesn't necessarily mean that I change how I treat people or change how I love people, but there are certain
things that scripture calls sinful and certain things that God says we should as Christians not participate in.
And sometimes there is consequence to that. Whether that be relational consequences, sometimes it can be job consequences
or tension, financial consequences of all of these things. And it's like that's where the faith is revealed, isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah.
Trust God to those lengths to Polycarp who gives up his life um as a martyr. And uh was he the one that was
killed in the So he's the one that when they came to get him, he served them refreshments. Yeah, that's right.
And his captors were weeping at the kindness and love that he showed them as they had to take him off to the execution.
And then he was going to be burned to death. Mhm. Only he doesn't burn in the fire. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego moment.
So, they have to literally kill him.
Stab him. Yes. And then there's some pretty graphic descriptions of that um about the amount of blood that
flowed. But yeah, it it that death spoke something to myriads of people.
Yep. Yep. It's interesting to trace that and you can actually read the his epist I don't remember what they call it but
basically in the apostolic father's Polycarp. Yeah. The martyrdom of Polycarp.
Yeah. If you just Google Polycarp you'll be able to find quite a bit on him. I think there's a book called the book of martyrs.
Yeah. Fox's book of martyrs.
That's what it is. Fox's book of martyrs. um that I've skimmed I haven't read the whole entire thing, but skimmed portions and it's
pretty um I think faith building uh to see this and it's actually you know we ended the sermon with Corey Tinboom's
quote who if you don't know her uh she wrote the hiding place went through um they were hiding some of the Jews during
the Holocaust movement and I think she ends up spending some time in a concentration camp and she has a
conversation in the book with her dad um about hey I don't know if I have enough faith to withstand what I'm going to
withstand um and her dad looks at her and she tells the story of hey when we get on a
train when do I give you your ticket um and she said well you give it to me right before we get on the train when she was a kid uh and then you get on the
train you hand it to the conductor and you're off and one and he said, "Listen, God gives the grace that we need in the moment that we're in. He gives us the
ticket and if you need to be a martyr, he'll give you martyr's grace at the time of that. Uh persecution grace at
the time of that. For some of you, perseverance grace at the time of where you're having to persevere through an ordeal that whether it's a health scare
or a health crisis in your family. Uh whether it's a job loss, whether it's a different persevering scenario or season
that you might be in that God's going to pour in the grace. He'll give you the ticket for that grace that you need in the moment that you're in. You don't get
it necessarily ahead of time. Dad didn't give Corey the ticket a week ahead of time because she might lose it. You get
it right then. Um, and I think that when you read the book uh the book of martyrs, you see these people who have
incredible courage that probably seems superhuman uh in some ways. At least it would be
for me sitting here in suburbia of 2026 and realizing I don't know if I could do that. Um but God poured in the grace
that was needed in that moment. Uh and he'll do that for the moments that I have to walk through. He'll do that for the moments you have to walk through that you have to walk through. Um that
we'll get the proportion amount of grace that we need uh for that season. Hence the righteous will live by faith. Yeah.
And I think we forget Ephesians 28 and 9 when it talks about it's by grace you've been saved through faith.
This is not from yourselves is the gift of God. Right. Not by works so that no one can.
The gift of God we skip over. The gift of God is not grace. It's not salvation. It's faith.
The gift that God gives his people is faith. Yep.
And when we see that as the gift, of course, we would look back and be like, man, that's like supernatural. Yeah.
It's meant to be. It's meant to point to the fact that it wasn't their human nature that enabled them to
have that. It was walking in the spirit by the spirit through faith that gave them the grace for the moment that they needed. Yeah.
Big. It's big.
This is my favorite book, by the way, in the Old Testament, Habakkuk. Um, I love the arc of the story. So, you
have a guy who goes from incredible internal tension and struggle and confusion and questions and
complaints and he's irritated. Um, and he goes through and he gets a couple words from God and one of them seems
even confusing. One of them seems like unrealistic like that can't happen and yet God's going to make it happen. And then the second one is like but I don't
understand because it's like this gap between which we kind of talked about last night. But the idea of just maybe
there's a time uh that this is not going to fulfillment from when the promise is given and fulfillment is there's a time
gap and that's going to play out and he's probably not going to live long enough to see it and and so he's living in faith but then he goes through this
perspective change where God gets a hold of his heart again while he's in the watchtower while he's kind of camped
out going I'm waiting on God. God reforms his heart. So that verse two of chapter 3, you really could turn into a
prayer for you when you're in a deep need season and you're waiting on God.
Just make verse two your prayer and personalize it. And then he gets to the verse 17 through 19. It's like, okay,
yet. And in fact, I think I don't know if it's Spurgeon or somebody that says yet is the three letter word that really
sums up the entire book of Habakkuk. um that yet I will I will choose to worship God and so his whole perspective gets
changed which is I know part of uh the beauty of what I know you love about um this book well but isn't like this is really uh
it's interesting to see the legacy of David live on in Habakkuk really yes because you brought that up earlier you look at the psalms that David wrote the
questions that he asked of God and it's the same pattern that David brings a real raw honest pray to God.
And in his psalms of lament, they end with worship. Like it brings him back to a place of worship,
recognizing God is still worthy of my worship regardless of my circumstances.
So I'm going to choose to worship him even in the hard place, even in the difficult spot that I'm in because he's still good and he's still worthy of that. Yeah.
Like just it's huge. And yeah, I mean I just the end of Habakkuk 3, I mean it
spoke a lot to me just when I was in college, you know, to have my dad get diagnosed with cancer right before going to school.
Um then I ended up taking a year off during my sophomore year to care for my dad at which, you know, during that part of the year he passed away
and just dealing with the grief of that as I'm like entering my formative years of becoming a man, you know. Um, but I share the
story because someone actually shared the that verse in a devotional a couple weeks ago before service.
But that kind of became the life verse of that season for me that though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit be
on the vine. The produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food.
There be no herd in the stall. The flock be cut off from the fold. And there be no herd in the stalls.
Yet I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. I like there's one that's I will joy in the God of my salvation like he
Yeah. Um, and I just thought about that when, you know, that was being shared and it was so meaningful that, you know, my best
friend at the time, uh, in college ran track at U of A and he was a pretty highly rated recruit and his career just
never he never reached the heights that they thought that he would because he kept having hamstring injuries.
And, uh, it was just, it was really disappointing. And I just I still remember his senior year. He's kind of, it's his last meet. He was trying to get
fit to like have a good race and I feel like he ran but it just it still wasn't what he wanted it to be and we're just
kind of sitting and decompressing and processing everything and he's just like you know Habakkuk 3 like you shared that
being your life verse and for me like I made verse 19 my life verse that he makes my feet like the deer he makes me tread on my high places. I'm
thinking as a hurdler, yeah, that's for me.
And I didn't realize God anchored me in these verses because I needed verses 17 and 18 more than I needed 19. Yeah.
Like just how meaningful that like it's just interesting like that that's a brother for life. Like we had to grieve stuff together and
and God gave us that for a season. And um yeah, it's just another question here
kind of along these lines. Hines feet on Hines Places come from Mhm. Yeah. Habakkuk 3. Yes. Forget who wrote that.
Yeah. I don't know.
Anyway, very famous old classic Hines Feed in Hines places. Uh classic devotional type thing. But
uh so you mentioned one line in there before we get to that. Uh maybe think of the Tim Killer quote uh walking through pain and suffering. This is from his
book uh walking through pain and suffering. You do not have enough faith to generate joy in the dark, but you do have enough faith to get to God and he is the source of joy. Um, yeah.
And so I think it's that invitation that Hippachic found that we can find in our seasons of being stuck in the waiting room or seasons of difficulty or deep
need is okay, I can't generate joy in this moment. Um, but I can have enough faith to get me to God, which is what
Habakkuk did. And God is the source of my joy. Um, and so I will I will worship
the one who can be the source of my joy, the source of my comfort, the source of the wisdom I need, the source of uh the
comfort I need, the source of the insight that I need going forward that I just got to get to the source and so God can provide enough faith for me to get
to him which I think is the imitation of Habakkuk of why we can come to him and why we should go to him.
So anyway, absolutely. Yeah. Well, I mean, in this we see uh and what you'd said this that God
would rather hear an honest complaint than a fake prayer.
So, where does that challenge maybe our understanding than of what acceptable prayer looks like to God?
So, I took a lot of English classes in college for my communication major and
and uh creative writing classes and speech classes and all that kind of stuff. And
I've wrestled with that particular, okay, what is prayer? Um,
and I actually think honest prayer does have words, but I think honest prayer is
sometimes silence.
And that's probably the contemplative in me that's been growing over the last decade. um that I think
attention and searching and questioning and trying to understand
I think all of that is prayer. Um and I think it's about a posture of the heart that's open toward God.
Um, and that's why we made the phrase we uh used last night of I think it's people with immature faith rush
ahead of God or they run away from God when things get difficult and they deconstruct and just give it up and
Habakkuk could have done that um could have said God this isn't right uh and you shouldn't be doing it this way you
should be doing it a different way and could have run away could have gone to the Baal temple down the Um but he didn't. Um he could have
rushed ahead and tried to fix things on God's behalf. Instead, he just goes up at a watchtower and plants his feet and
says, "I'm going to wait on God." And I don't know if there were a lot of words in those moments. I don't know how long he was up there. Um we don't know.
But I think that's the beauty of what a moment of not a moment of silence like you know at a sports game where you take
a moment of silence for someone but I think the practice of silence and
solitude. Um gosh, I have had more deep
interaction engagement with God in some of my silence and solitude
that didn't have a lot of words to it that I think was uh a beneficial
prayer session with very few words. Um and I think that's where Habach got his
perspective changed and why we have verse or chapter 3 which is a psalm uh
or a poem that that he that he sings. So you have a guy who is shouting in chapter one at God who turns into a
singer to God in the arc of that. It's beautiful. Yeah.
Yeah. I think that we almost treat prayer as this performative thing sometimes.
Yes.
Where we do feel like we need a creative writing class and we do need some English lessons to compose a brilliant prayer.
Right.
And yet if God just wants the honesty, if God already knows what's in my heart, I don't need to do the performative
thing. I almost just need to. It's the taking the deep breath. Yep.
When you're just too tired to care anymore and you just you let it go. Yep.
You know, like I think that those are the prayer moments that have been meaningful that Yeah. I want to be respectful of God, but sometimes in your
prayers, you might let slip a four-letter word.
And I don't like I have I think God knows our heart enough to know that we're not trying to diminish his holiness in any way in those
moments. God just he sees the struggle of the soul. Yeah.
So how meaningful is it to just know that the Holy Spirit already intercedes for us with prayers that we don't even know we need words.
So yeah, like we may just be groaning in weeping and crying and the Holy Spirit's already translating all of that for us
anyway and praying that on our behalf. I think the beauty is often occasionally I will say uh not often but occasionally
when I have let the rawness come out um I get a four-letter love a four-letter
word in return and that's love um that you just begin to see and feel and sense literally almost the embrace of God.
That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool when you have those moments. So, may you
have more of those moments in your life, especially when you're going through uh
the deep end kind of pain and that season of um what feels like
confusion and you don't know if you're going to get out of it.
there's someone there with you in the midst of it. That's what Habakkuk learns.
So, yeah, it feels like a timely message for our church that we've got families who are dealing with relational fallout. Yep.
We've got people who are walking through divorce that they didn't ask for. We've got people who are walking through job loss, health scares.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, you just It's been a season of uncertainty. Yeah.
You know, and you said this that God changed Habakkuk long before he changed the circumstances.
Uh and so for those who might be in that season where they're hoping for the change of circumstances and yet maybe God's trying to bring some change of
heart, like why do you think God often works this way? And what do you think he might be trying to develop in us
in these waiting seasons? H I've never been a a steel worker. I'm a
Steelers fan. And so, but the steel worker when they're fashioning steel and it's like red hot
and they're pounding away at it, but they form it into some beautiful artistry and incredible work of art.
And yet the process to get to that is like a beating. Um,
and yet the beauty of what you behold after the fact is an incredible thing.
So sometimes the reality is to get to the beautiful expression of a deepened
character with God or a deeper walk with God, it takes going through the pounding.
It's the entering into the fellowship of his sufferings that Paul talks about. Uh I
want to experience the resurrection power of Jesus. But you don't rush to that like you don't just get that like
injected into you. Uh you have to go through some of the fellowships of his sufferings that actually pours in the
power. So you get the ticket uh to the grace and the power that you need the moment that you're in it. Uh
you don't get that ahead of time. Um so but it is the beauty after the fact that
is worth uh going through the difficulties or the tensions and the stretching that's taking place.
Yeah. So, and it's easy when you're in the midst of that again to want to
rush ahead of God and solve it, fix it, find the shortcut, or to give up, run
away, and say, "This is too hard." Um, but you don't get to see the beauty of the artistry and the character
development uh within your own soul and your own heart without waiting and going through the process.
If you're in the process right now, may I just recommend press pause on this video and look up Bibo Norman. Be ebo.
Such a southern good old southern boy name. BBO.
Bibbo Norman. He has a song from the early 2000s, maybe even late 90s called The Hammer Holds.
And it is so good.
That's awesome. Bibbo Norman, The Hammer Holds. I'm going to Google it.
You said that word, didn't. So, um, yeah, last question here and then we'll
do the application and wrap it up here.
So, going back to Corey Tinboom, uh, you mentioned her story, but you quoted her at the end of the sermon said, "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a
known God." Isn't that great?
What is it that we know about God's character that helps us trust him with unknown futures?
I think we were talking I think about this before we started recording that uh sometimes we're encouraged I know you
are too when you see the work of God throughout history and so you see the past
historical workings of God uh through obviously through the life of Jesus the early church um some of the martyrs of
the faith the leaders of the early church into the third fourth fifth century, you get to Martin Luther and you get to like modern day like Billy
Grahams and things like that. And so you just go, gosh, God's been on the move and active throughout history for a
long time. Uh long before I got here and he'll be at work long after I'm gone.
Um, and so I take solace and hope in that that um the reason I can trust my
unknown moment of history to a known God is a he
knows me. I can know him through faith in Jesus. I can look back and go, "Yeah,
she's been active and present and responsive and helpful and enduring
through so much." Yeah. Yeah. He's earned my trust uh
because of the of the past and the validity of how he's been faithful. So, it's his faithfulness uh not mine. it's
his faithfulness that I can trust and go, okay, then that person, it's the same way in any relationship that you
have that when you have trustworthy people, um, then you're okay trusting them. When you don't have trustworthy
people, you shouldn't trust them. And so, when God has proven his trustworthiness, his faithfulness, then
I can trust my unknown future to that known God.
It's what led Paul to write that he who began a good work in you will be faithful completed. Yeah.
And he's shown that in the lives of many, many believers ever since those words were pinned. So, yep.
All right. A couple thoughts on application, some suggestions, things that you can practice this week if you want to uh find some sort of a actual
takeaway, something that you can apply to your life. So, uh number one is this. Start a watchtower practice.
Identify one practice that helps you position yourself to hear from God.
Whether that be your morning prayer, uh writing in your journal, uh taking a weekly day of Sabbath, uh maybe it's a
physical place you can go. You can escape up to Mount Lemon and go for a hike and bring some food into a picnic.
um start a watchtower practice and then commit to doing that practice at least three times this week
and then use that time to intentionally sit in silence and just wait for God to speak.
Just wait and listen, asking God to speak to you. Number two, maybe it's this for you. It's write it down like
God told Habakkuk to write down the vision. Journal your current questions, complaints, or waiting room situations.
After you've written out the situation and just vented what's going on, write down what you know to be true about God's character, even if you don't feel it right now in this moment.
Number three, practice yet worship. So each day this week, identify something difficult in your life and follow it with yet I will jo.
and list something true about God's character or faithfulness.
That might be a good one to write down, but even just to speak that out loud. What's something difficult that took place during your day?
Mention that to God. And yet, I'll rejoice in the Lord because fill in the blank. So, side note to that one, I almost I didn't have enough time to pull
it off for this Sunday, but I almost tried to recreate the yield sign uh and just cross out the red and the and make
it yellow and just put yet. Um kind of like the Yeti thing that you see of the Sasquatch Rockman. Um and but I couldn't
get it here fast enough. So, I was like, man, I was going to hand it out to everybody because you know me and props, I like props. Anyway, but so maybe in
your own hand scratching on a scratching note or on a sticky note, just put a a yet sign up on your mirror. That could
every time you you're getting ready in the morning and you go, "Okay." Yep. Yet. Yeah. Then last one here, share your story.
Think of a time when you had to wait on God and he came through, even if it was differently than you expected him to come through. and then share this story
with someone this week to encourage them in their way. So there you have it.
Takeaways nerding out over the book of Habakkuk.
Thanks for joining us for that. We uh How many K's are inHabakkuk? Three Ks. Three Ks. One B. One B. One B. Three Ks. Yeah. Habakkuk
There you go.
Yeah. Maybe we don't end there, but you know that's strikeouts. We're talking strikeouts. Strikeouts. baseball season.
Any who, hope you have a great week. Uh, next week we'll be back. Zephaniah, and then uh we've got Haggi and Zechariah. That's it. Three more books.
We'll cover Malachi at a time to be determined and Jonah we cover. So, but yeah, down the road.
Appreciate you all and uh yeah, hope you have a blessed week.
