The Watchman Who Argued With God

There was a man named Habakkuk, and he had a question. It was a big question, the kind that sits in your chest and aches.

Habakkuk looked around at his world, and it was full of wrong things. People hurt people, the strong stepped on the weak, lies kept winning, and good people cried while no one seemed to stop any of it.

So Habakkuk did something brave. He took his question straight to God.

"How long?" he said. "How long do I have to call for help before you hear me? Why do you let me look at all this trouble and do nothing?"

God did not turn away. He did not say, "Hush, you mustn't ask." God let Habakkuk argue. God leaned close to listen, the way a father leans close to a child who is frightened in the dark.

And God answered. "I am doing something," he told him. "You wouldn't believe it even if I told you. But it is coming."

Habakkuk still wasn't sure. So he did the bravest thing yet. He climbed up high, up onto the wall, like a watchman who watches all night for the morning. "I will stand here," he said, "and I will wait. I will watch to see what God will say to me."

And God spoke again. He told Habakkuk to write it down big, so plain that a person running past could read it. Here is what God said:

The answer is coming. It may seem slow. But wait for it. It will not be late, not even by a minute. And the one who belongs to me will live by trusting me.

Live by trusting me.

That was the answer. God did not say the trouble was over, or that he had fixed it all that very day. He said, hold on to me while you wait, and you will live.

Then God gave Habakkuk a promise to carry. One day, God said, the whole earth would be full of knowing how glorious I am, the way the sea is full of water: every drop, every corner, nothing left dry and nothing left dark.

And Habakkuk, who started out arguing and aching, ended up singing. He remembered how, long before, God had split a sea in two and walked his people through on dry ground, and he knew that the same God was with him still. Even with the wrong things around him, even with the waiting still to do, he sang: "Though everything goes wrong, yet I will be glad in God who saves me. He is my strength."

When you look around and your chest aches and you whisper how long?, you are standing right where Habakkuk stood. On the wall, watching for the morning.

Habakkuk could only sing about that morning, but you can know it by name. The One who fills the whole earth with glory has a face now. He came. He is Jesus, and the first light is already breaking over the wall. The day he makes every wrong thing right is on its way, and it will not be late by even a minute.