Daily Encouragement: Year 1, Day 56
Adapted from Handbook to Leadership
Personal Development: Values
This righteous prophet struggled with the reality that wicked people often prosper.
Habakkuk’s first complaint to God questioned why the Lord was allowing the people of Judah to continue in their wickedness and injustice. When the Lord answered that He was preparing the Babylonians as His weapon of judgment on Judah’s unrighteousness (vv. 5–6), Habakkuk made an even more strenuous objection. The Babylonians were even more wicked than the people of Judah; how could God allow such a people to judge His people? God’s response overcame the prophet’s objections, but notice that Habakkuk was confused by an apparent incompatibility between God’s character and God’s actions.
As we look at the progressive revelation of the person of God from Genesis to Revelation, we discover Him to be the immutable foundation upon which moral concepts such as goodness, love, and justice are based.
Habakkuk learned that God’s plan for the purification of His people went far beyond what he could understand. Although God’s actions seemed unjust and out of line with eternal values, this prophet realized that God’s actions were a small part of His larger, and perfectly sovereign, plan.