As Habakkuk recounts God’s mighty deeds throughout the ages and looks forward to a future salvation, we see a foreshadowing of what is to come in Jesus Christ, the true Anointed One.

You have likely heard people called “boomers,” or maybe even “zoomers,” but have you come across the term “doomer?” A doomer is someone who holds a pessimistic view of life, who despairs over impending societal collapse, and feels a sense of helplessness and hopelessness in the face of doom and gloom. In all honesty, as Christians we can sometimes find ourselves with a “doomer” mindset when we survey the world around us raging with wickedness, political corruption, and false worship, and question if God is still working and why He allows such evil. Thousands of years ago, a prophet named Habakkuk grappled with this very situation as he looked around his world and cried out to God in despair. Habakkuk’s inquiries and God’s responses offer us a profound reminder that our faith ultimately centers not on our circumstances, but on Christ, the fulfillment of prophecy.
The book of Habakkuk is unique in its genre. Rather than the book being focused solely on the prophecy or the recipients of the message, it gives a behind-the-scenes peek of a prophet’s prayer life as he wrestles with his message. Habakkuk had observed the violence, iniquity, and destruction around him from his own people and brought his frustration to the Lord, crying out, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” Based on what he knows of God’s holy and just character, he assumes such sinful behavior would be met with swift and heavy punishment—not silence.
God responds to the prophet in an unexpected way. Yes, God will bring justice, but His judgment will not immediately result in the clean, ordered, and obedient world that Habakkuk seems to expect. The Lord’s chosen instruments of retribution are the wicked Chaldeans, a nation more sinful than Judah! Habakkuk wrestles with this. He wonders why God, who cannot look at wrong, will punish wickedness with wickedness? It just doesn’t add up. So again, he makes his complaint known, and awaits God’s reply.
God patiently affirms His plan, but condemns the wickedness of the sinful nations. He broadens Habakkuk’s perspective, and reminds him that though judgment seems slow, it is certain, and “the righteous shall live by his faith“ (2:4). His glory is still the end game, for one day, “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (2:14). Habakkuk may not like his imminent circumstances, but God’s plan of salvation is certain, and righteousness will reign in the end.
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Those who have experienced great loss and difficulty in life often treasure this truth more than those whose bellies and bank accounts are full. For those desperately seeking Him can be assured that God will work all things they have been given— gifts and trials alike— together for good. He has given us the greatest good of His Son, which can not be taken from us, and has given us more than we could ask for or desire in the unsearchable greatness and inexhaustible fountain of riches in Christ.

A man loses his fortune in a fire. Shortly after, all four of his young children die in a tragic shipwreck. A young woman’s husband is brutally murdered. Her second husband dies of cancer, and she herself passes away after a decade-long battle with dementia. A promising teenager becomes a quadriplegic in a diving accident. For the rest of her life she is confined to a wheelchair; from the neck down unable to move her once active body.
And yet, Joni Eareckson Tada, after learning to write with a pen in her mouth, reflected: “It is a glorious thing to know that your Father God makes no mistakes in directing or permitting that which crosses the path of your life.”
And when it seemed providence had dealt her a cruel hand in the death of her two husbands, Elisabeth Elliot wrote, “God never witholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good.”
And even as his ship slowly passed by the place where his children drowned, Horatio Spafford penned the beloved lines, “Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say it is well with my soul.”
There seems to be a shocking dissonance between the words and the lives of these individuals. Were they deluded into thinking that God has been good to them? Or, had they taken hold of the promise many of us have a difficult time grasping— that God withholds nothing good from the upright, for God Himself is our greatest gift and gives Himself freely to us.
When the psalmist writes, “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly,” our first instinct is to make a mental list of all the good things that we do not have. Like our first parents, we are tempted to believe that God is keeping something from us.
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Even when it is meant for evil, as with Joseph’s brothers; even in the midst of our sin, as with David; and even when it involves people we wouldn’t expect, such as Rahab; God is still sovereignly accomplishing His will for the redemption of His people for His glory.

A colorful coat given to a boy. An evening walk on a palace roof. A red cord hung from a prostitute’s window. These brief scenes from over three thousand years ago should have no bearing on our lives today. Yet these moments were used to bring about the most important event in human history: the cross of Calvary. You could write it off as coincidence, you could minimize the significance, or you can marvel at God’s sovereignty.
But what is sovereignty? Sovereignty is God’s right to rule over His creation and to do as He pleases (Psalm 115:3). Everyone—from the greatest world ruler to the humble farmer—reports directly to God. No one answers to themselves or operates outside of His will. The Westminster Confession of Faith says it this way, “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.” (WCF, 3) God’s sovereignty is the very core of everything that has happened or will ever happen, and we are called to submit to Him as the Author, the Potter, the Creator, the King.
Though God reigns over the arch of history, He is also so intimately involved in the daily details of our lives that even seemingly random acts such as the casting of lots are governed by Him (Prov. 16:33). There is nothing that catches God off guard, nothing that causes Him to course correct, nothing that He watches helplessly. There is nothing so big or so small—no panic attack or pandemic—that occurs without His permission. He guides our steps, numbers our hairs, and ordains our days (Ps. 37:23-24, Ps. 139, Matt. 10:30).
As Christians, such careful involvement ought to greatly comfort and astound us but it often leads to anxiety or apathy instead.
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