All of us have experienced our perspective changing over time because of the position or role in which we find ourselves.
Perhaps we started a job as a regular employee with many great ideas about how to better run the organization, fix problems, and improve it. But later when we became a manager or supervisor we realized, based on our new position, that many of those great ideas we had as an employee wouldn’t work as a manager. Maybe as a kid we didn’t like our parents and disagreed with what they did. But when we became a mother or father we then saw the wisdom in what our parents did. Politicians usually campaign on a set of changes they want to make when elected into office. But when elected they often realize what they wanted to accomplish is impossible or not practical after learning how government works.
Let me propose—if I may—that it can be like that with God too. The things we think God should do are not seen that same way from God’s perspective. The way we believe God should intervene in a situation from our perspective on earth is different than the God’s perspective from heaven.
Habakkuk was experiencing this in 607 BC. In chapter one Habakkuk questions God’s inactivity. Habakkuk essentially asks in Habakkuk 1:2–4, “How long will evil continue and when will you stop it?” Next we read God’s first answer to Habakkuk in Habakkuk 1:5–11. God essentially responds, “I’m going to stop it, I know what’s going on, and you’ll be surprised how.” Therefore Habakkuk asks a second question in 1:12—2:1. He questions God’s inconsistency and basically asks, “Why use greater sinners against less sinners?”
In Habakkuk 2:2–20 we read God’s second answer to Habakkuk. If we were to summarize these nineteen verses into one big idea it would be this: God responds to Habakkuk with a message about the future, a message for the faithful, and a message for Babylon. In Habakkuk 2:2–20 we learn that righteous standing starts and continues by faith in God.
In this section we will read Habakkuk 2:4 which is one of the most well-known and frequently quoted verses from Scripture. While God has declared his plans for the wicked (Hab 2:4a, 5), God declares his plans for the righteous saying, “But the righteous will live by his faith[1]” (Hab 2:4b).[2] The late theologian John Walvoord says this verse is “not only the central theme of Habakkuk but of the entire Scripture.”[3] Faith should be the central theme of our lives just as it is the central theme of Scripture.[4]
By faith we wait, by faith we live, and by faith we suffer. Faith is the key topic of Habakkuk 2:2–20. We might have ideas, based on our perspective on earth, about what God should do. But when God’s plans, based on his perspective in heaven, doesn’t make sense then we live by our faith in him.
[1] Some translations read “faithfulness” (NIV, NEB, focusing on the aspect of the word that can mean moral steadfastness.
[2] Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.
[3] John Walvoord, Every Prophecy of the Bible (Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook, 1990), 308.
[4] I agree with the assessment of Taylor Turkington who writes, “The phrase ‘live by faith’ has benn stitched on enough pillows to fill a city and drained of it’s real meaning. It’s depth has turned into fluff, meaning something like ‘just keep believing good things will happen’” (Taylor Turkington, Trembling Faith: How a Distressed Prophet Helps Us Trust God in a Chaotic World [Brentwood, TN: B&H Publishing, 2023], 66).