PART 3: HOPE AND GLORY
3.1 REMEMBER
"If you think God has forgotten you, then you have forgotten who God is"—Anonymous
1. Habakkuk prays, “LORD, I have heard of Your fame; I stand in awe of Your deeds, LORD. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2). There’s a respectful, appreciative tone to the way he begins here. In fact, the Hebrew word that’s translated “repeat” here is chayah, which simply means to renew, to revive, or restore.
2. I can almost imagine him saying, “God, I remember what You did. You stunned us all with Your power and glory. I remember when You guided your people by fire and by cloud. I remember when You fed us with bread from heaven. I remember when the waters parted and we walked through on dry land. I remember when You shook the earth and the walls came tumbling down. I remember when You used torrential rains to defeat people who wanted to harm us. I remember when You sent pestilence and plagues against our enemies. God, I remember what You can do. Now please renew those deeds in our day.”
3. When I'm in the valley, sometimes I simply need to remember. I just have to recall all that God has done in my life—for me, through me, even in spite of me. I return to who I know God is. When I can’t see Him in my present situation, I remember what He’s done in the past.
4. Regardless of where you are in your relationship with God right now, you have them too: those memories of when He was clearly involved in your life. Remember: every time God acts and reveals Himself, it’s important. He is constantly showing us that He is with us and that He cares.
5. What do you do when you’re in the valley? You remember what God has done. When He comforted you. When He guided you. When He answered your prayer exactly the way you wanted Him to. And when He didn’t do what you wanted, but sometime later you realized it was exactly what you needed. And you dare to believe that what He’s done before, He will do again.
3.2 ACCEPT
"It’s not denial. I’m just selective about the reality I accept" —Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
1. Sometimes, even when we remember all that God has done for us, it doesn’t change our circumstances. Sometimes we just have to accept that it’s beyond our understanding right now and just keep going. But we must also realize that acceptance is not denying the reality of what we’re experiencing and how we feel about it. It simply means acknowledging the truth of the situation, expressing our feelings, and looking to God for what He’s going to do.
2. Acceptance is not denial. When you accept what God is doing, you don’t simply stuff your feelings down and let your heart die, even as you’re practicing your smile in the mirror and memorizing Bible verses. When you accept that God’s up to something that you can’t see or understand right now, you don’t just roll over and play dead and resign yourself to despair. No, you keep praying for a miracle from Him unless He tells you otherwise, as He did with Habakkuk. But you don’t pretend that everything is okay when clearly it’s not.
Maybe God is trying to tell you something through your circumstances, something like, “Pull your head out—now!”
3. Sometime, something is going to happen that you don’t like. It may be happening right now. Sometimes you just need more patience, sincere faith, deeper trust, even if your cat isn’t coming home. So how do you pull yourself out of the valley?
You remember what God has done.
You accept what God is doing.
You trust what God is going to do.
3.3 TRUST
"The best proof of love is trust" —Joyce Brothers
1. Coming out of the dip and using our crisis of belief as a catalyst to reaching a higher, more intimate plateau with God requires trust. We have to make choices about what we believe is true, exercise our willpower to act on those beliefs, and yet remain honest about the way things appear to us and how we feel. If we allow any of those parts to override the others, then we’ll usually end up sliding back down into the valley again.
2. Habakkuk offers us an amazing model of a healthy, balanced response to what had to be about the worst news he could have received from God. Even as his body reacted, he realized that he had a choice about what he was going to believe. He could trust his emotions. He could trust his current view of the situation. Or he could trust that God could somehow bring good out of an inconceivable scenario—the Babylonians invading their land.
Habakkuk prays, “I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Hab. 3:16–18).
3. In your life, it may feel like the Babylonians have already ravaged the landscape of your heart. You may be grieving losses that occurred years ago. But even in the middle of all that pain, if you can choose to trust God despite all kinds of evidence to the contrary, then you will break through to a new level of intimacy with Him. You will know His presence in the middle of your hurting. You will trust His character when you don’t understand your circumstances. Then, no matter what happens, no matter how painfully your heart is pierced, you can continue to take one more step for one more day.
4. As with Habakkuk, your prayer becomes honest about what you’ve lost or will lose, even as you realize that you still have God.
“Even though I don’t like it, even though I don’t understand it, even though I know He could and He should but He’s not, yet will I trust in the Lord my God.”
3.4 HOPE
"A living hope enables us to have both sorrow and joy. Our living hope is an inheritance achieved for us by Christ" —Tim Keller
1. Habakkuk wasn't imprisoned, but he did know what it was like to feel confined by terrible circumstances. Nonetheless, as we have seen, he was still able to remember all that God had done for him, to accept that God was up to something more than meets the human eye, and to trust that God would bring about something glorious from the ruins of the present. Habakkuk concludes his prayer, “The Sovereign LORD is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to tread on the heights” (Hab. 3:19).
2. When you consider what this prophet knew he was already facing—and that it was about to get a lot worse when the Babylonians came to town—it’s stunning that he can pray this prayer. “Even though the fig tree doesn’t bud and there are no animals in the barn, yet the Lord is in His holy temple. Even though it’s going to get worse before it gets better, be still all the earth before Him. The righteous will live by faith. God’s word will be true. I will find my strength and my hope in the Lord my God, and He will take me to new heights”.
3. While you or I might feel like a squashed bug under the weight of Habakkuk’s circumstances, he compares himself to a mountain deer, one with steady feet, about to climb the heights. One about to rise up out of the valley of despair, depression, and desolation and reach the mountaintop.
4. Faced with what seems unbearable, unbelievable, we can find no better response than Habakkuk’s. If you take nothing else away from this little book, I hope you’ll remember what Habakkuk’s name means: To wrestle. And to embrace. Sometimes we can’t tell the difference.
5. I’m convinced that so often we go through these times when we kick and scream and fight God, and all He’s really trying to do is hold us and guide us through the storm. We want to ask questions and demand answers, to hold Him accountable and to have Him remedy the situation immediately. But He knows that’s not possible—for our own good. Sometimes God must envelop us in ways that feel rigid and confining.
To wrestle and to embrace.
Both at the same time.
That’s how we find our way to hope.
3.5 BELIEVE
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else" —C. S. Lewis
1. Hope is a funny thing. When you truly trust God, you have something to look forward to, a kind of divine anticipation for where He’s taking you. You also have a security you can rest in, the certainty that no matter how bad things seem, He’s still in control and on your side. And you have a desire for change—probably in your circumstances, but more important, in your heart. You want to be closer to God. When you add up all these things, you get the kind of hope that allows you to climb up beyond your present circumstances and confusion.
2. Proverbs tells us, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life” (13:12 NLT). Proverbs also tells us, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (29:18 KJV). There’s something about the power of hope that fuels us and enables us to persevere.
It’s amazing what you can endure when you have a reason.
3. No one illustrated this better than Jesus. When He knelt in the garden of Gethsemane, He knew what He would have to endure. The beatings. The scourging. The mocking. The torture. The humiliation. But Jesus continued moving forward. He remained faithful to His Father. How did Jesus do it? The writer of the book of Hebrews gives us a glimpse. Hebrews 12:2–3 says, “For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart”. Jesus just needed one reason to press through the pain. One good reason to stay. What was His reason? It was the “joy set before Him.”
You were the reason He came.
You were the joy set before Him.
If you don’t even know where you’re going, what’s the point of continuing to press forward? Without hope, it’s hard to get out of the valley and stay out.
4. There’s nothing wrong with looking forward to any of these. But usually the things we look forward to and anticipate, the things we hope for, are short-term moments of gratification. After all, we can have virtually anything we want sooner than almost any other people in history. But usually, the things that mean the most require time. Building loving relationships. Trusting someone. Watching your kids grow up. Finding a fulfilling job. Sure, the little things might get us through the day, the week, the month. But only the hope of the Lord can get us through life.
5. True hope both requires and relies on security, a firm foundation in the power that is the basis for that hope. As the author of Hebrews explains, leading into that Faith Hall of Fame that we walked through in part 2, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1 KJV). But we all know how hard it can be to exercise our faith when we can’t see any concrete reason to base it on. So by its very definition, it seems like faith is doing something for which you have no logical basis. And without the character of God—and our relationship with Him—as our foundation, we might as well be hoping in Santa Claus or our iPhone.
6. No matter what we see and feel, God is more real than anything else in our lives. And I realize that all of these abstract ideas and concepts can start to seem confusing or feel detached from the flesh-and-blood, bills-and bankruptcy trials you may be going through. But they do matter, and Scripture explains their relationship this way: “We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:3–5).
7. If you still want to believe, then God will meet you in the midst of your efforts to believe. Even if you throw your Bible across the room, or shake your fist at God or question Him, as Habakkuk did, God will honor the passionate sincerity of your pursuit. If you really want to experience God’s closeness and care for you as you go through trials—and you desire that more than you hope your circumstances will change and your comfort will return—then He will come alongside you with each and every step.
8. This journey of faith is easier said than done, I know. And so often, as we’ve seen, it’s a matter of perspective. Just to emphasize this point, I have a little poem that I think will help you.
Kyle’s Poem
God doesn’t love me
You can’t force me to believe
God is good
This is the One Truth in life
This world is a product of chance
How can I believe that
God will use my life
I know with certainty that
God has left me
Never again will I say that
Christ is risen from the dead
I know now more than ever in my life that
Man can save himself
We must realize that it is ignorant to think
God answers prayers
Christians declare that
Without God this world would fall into darkness
This world can and will meet my needs
It is a lie to say that
God has always been there for me
I now realize that
No matter what I do
The Truth is
He doesn’t love me
How can I presume that
God is good
Okay, now before you think I’ve lost my mind or abandoned everything I’ve told you up to this point, I’m going to ask that you read this poem one more time. Only this time, as you read it, I’d like to ask you to make one slight change: read it backward. Begin at the last line and read backward to the first line. Take your time. I’ll wait here. Wow, now that makes quite a difference, doesn’t it?
9. So much of what we go through works just like this poem. All we can see is what’s right in front of us. We can’t tell why God would allow such suffering and injustice in our lives or in the world around us. But with time, with patience, with perspective, we begin to see things differently. We realize, usually in hindsight, that God has brought something amazing and totally unexpected out of the ashes of our loss, grief, and heartache. Not least of which is a stronger faith, borne out of a deeper love for Him.
10. Habakkuk knew that our perspective changes, even while God’s remains the same.
“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Hab. 3:17–18).
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
No matter what.
CONCLUSION: WHEN YOU QUESTION YOUR BELIEVE
"Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory" —William Barclay, Scottish minister
1. I don't know what you're going through or what you've already survived. And none of us knows what we’ll face tomorrow. But I do know this: our God is a good God who loves us enough to sacrifice His precious Son, the greatest gift He could give us, just so we can know Him, just so we can glorify Him on earth, just so we can spend eternity with Him in heaven. He loves us that much. We’re able to love him—or anyone else—only because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).
2. When hard things happen, and the best you can manage is to want to believe, that’s enough. Don’t stop wanting to believe. Allow that spark of hope to grow by trusting that m God is right there beside you. Like the father of the boy who was possessed, pray and ask God to help you overcome your unbelief. Like Habakkuk, ask your questions and then be prepared to listen to God’s response.
3. You may have noticed that the book of Habakkuk has three short chapters. In the first, Habakkuk is doubting. In the second, he’s waiting. In the third, he’s embracing the goodness of God. My prayer is that you would grow to have that Habakkuk kind of faith we see in chapter 3. But here’s the deal: you can’t have a chapter 3 type of faith until you’ve had a chapter 1 type of question and a chapter 2 kind of waiting. Because God does more spiritually in the valley than He does on the mountaintop.
4. Those who are closest to God have gotten there only because they keep climbing the path of faith out of the valleys in their lives. Instead of trying to run back, retracing their steps to some former peak, they’ve leaned m into the hardships and wrestled with God, questioning Him and yet trusting that He is good, that He will use everything to achieve His purposes, and that He will bring them back out—stronger, better, and closer to Him than ever before. They know it’s this process that ultimately proves God’s faithfulness, character, goodness, and love.
5. Do you want to grow closer to God? Do you want that intimacy with Him more than you want a comfortable, easygoing, problem-free life? Do you want to know that He is with you and cares about you, no matter what you are going through? Then doubt all you want, but never stop believing. Or at least wanting to believe.
You can have hope in the dark. Because as you grow to know God, He will reveal even more of His love, His faithfulness, His grace. And over time you will realize, believe, and embrace that even when life is difficult, God is still good.
HOPE IN THE DARK
CRAIG GROESCHEL
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