What do you do when you’ve prayed, obeyed, and trusted God, and things still fall apart?
I recently spoke to a lady from church who had a business in Leyte. Without giving too much info, she was sharing that due to the current crisis and the strong El Nino, their business was in major trouble.
But she kept praying. She would even worship with their employees onsite to cry out to God for mercy and grace.
She testified last Wednesday that with what they were expecting, God gave them a yield of 5x the amount. She couldn’t believe it and neither could we.
Habakkuk lived in that tension. He asked God to stop the bad circumstances, and God’s answer was worse: more downturn was coming. So can you rejoice when you have every reason not to?
Face the “Though”
Habakkuk lists six losses: fig tree, vines, olives, fields, flock, and herd. (Habakkuk 3:17)
That is every source of food and income gone. He was not exaggerating. He was forecasting what Babylon’s armies would do to the land.
He didn’t deny the loss nor spiritualize it. Faith starts by telling the truth. Picture a business owner opening the books and seeing every line at zero. Most of us avoid that page, but Habakkuk reads it aloud in prayer.
Name your “fig tree,” the thing you lean on most for security. Honest lament is not unbelief.
Choose Your “Yet”
Then one word turns the passage: “yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” (Habakkuk 3:18)
This “yet” isn’t a reflex. It comes after the wrestling of chapters 1-2. The Hebrew verbs for “rejoice” describe leaping, exultant joy. Its source is the Lord himself, not the harvest.
An anchor holds to the seabed, not the waves. Joy tied to circumstances rises and falls with every swell. Joy tied to God holds.
This week, write your own sentence: “Though ______, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.” Say it aloud before the circumstances change. This kind of joy is a decision, not a mood.
Walk in His Strength
“God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.” (Habakkuk 3:19)
We are told that deer are sure-footed and at the same time agile. A deer places its back feet exactly where its front feet landed, which is how it climbs steep ground without slipping. The climb is real, but Habakkuk’s song ends on the heights, not in the valley.
Uphill climbs are difficult. In an economic crisis we face today, not just local but global, it will seem like an insurmountable mountain. But God promises that our feet will be like that of a deer – stable yet agile.
So stop asking God only to remove the hard terrain, and ask him for stable yet agile footing during some of the most difficult uphill climbs of your life today.
When everything visible fails, the God of my salvation is still my joy and my strength.
Ask yourself:
- What is my “fig tree”?
- Is my joy rooted in what God gives, or in God himself?
- Where do I need his strength, and what is one faithful step I’ll take this week?
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