Habakkuk 3:16-19
I hear, and my body trembles;
my lips quiver at the sound;
rottenness enters into my bones;
my legs tremble beneath me.
Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble
to come upon people who invade us.
Habakkuk Rejoices in the Lord
17 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.
To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
Several years ago, I was at college conference called Passion. I had taken a group of High School Seniors and College students to this conference because of the challenge that the speakers brought. Each of the speakers was committed to the Word of God and to faithfully challenging this generation. One of the speakers at the conference was John Piper, with whom I was very familiar with. As he was preaching, he used a phrase or statement that I had heard or read several times over the years. It was statement that really drives him and his ministry. Piper made this comment about joy; “God offers himself to us as the infinitely valuable, infinitely beautiful, all-satisfying treasure of the universe for our full and everlasting enjoyment.” God is our enjoyment and our all-satisfying treasure. If we come to understand that statement on joy, then I believe that you and I can come to understand the response of Habakkuk.
Unfortunately, many of us find our joy or lack of joy in the circumstances of life. We view God through those circumstances, and we view our joy in Him through those circumstances. If we are truly honest with ourselves, we aren’t ready to see revival because to get to that point we must be completely broken over our sin and the sin of people. We are angrier at sin than we are broken over it. Habakkuk in the first 2 chapters was angry and somewhat broken, but that changed to complete brokenness and with that came a new understanding of joy! Habakkuk could truly say, “I will take my joy in the God of my salvation” even as destruction was coming to Judah. He was looking to God as his strength and protector and because of that, the circumstances could not take away his joy in God.
Can you find your joy in God, no matter the situation? If we are going to be faithful and truly have joy in God, then we need to examine our hearts as Habakkuk did. We must realize that God is sovereign, and His will and plan is best for us and for the Kingdom. Life will be more difficult as the second coming of Christ approaches. Persecution will become the norm across the nations and when that happens, we must find our joy in Christ no matter the circumstance.
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