When God Is Silent Day 10: Habakkuk 3:7-11

Read & Journal

Read Habakkuk 3:7-11. Meditate on what you’ve read:

• What do these verses teach you about God’s power?

• What do you learn about God’s character from these verses?

• Habakkuk now sees that what he once regarded as destruction is God’s means of salvation. Have you ever walked through a season that felt like destruction?

• How did God use that season to help you see more of who he is and what it means to walk with him?

• These verses present God as a divine warrior who intervenes on behalf of his children. When has God fought for you?

Ponder

When God had revealed his plan to use the Babylonians as his instrument of judgment, Habakkuk had questioned God. But as Habakkuk prayed in the final chapter of the book that bears his name, what he once saw as destruction, he now understood as a means of salvation and redemption. God was stepping into the mess that his people had made—as he had time and time before throughout the Old Testament—and he was intervening on behalf of his children to provide salvation.

Ultimately, Jesus would step in on our behalf, becoming like us and taking on our shame, so that through his sinless life, death and resurrection, he could save us and bring us into an eternal relationship with the Father.

In the middle of a difficult season, it often seems impossible to see beyond the pain or stress. But sometimes, when we look back at our lives with the eyes of faith, we can see that somehow God was using that difficult time as a means of bringing about our repentance. The pain, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 7:9, was meant to draw us to repentance and a new way of life. God was calling Habakkuk and the people of Judah into a changed way of life—and the means of getting there was a season of godly sorrow.

What we sometimes think will destroy us can be the means God uses to draw us closer to himself and turn our hearts from rebellion to repentance. Trust him today. Seek him today. And if he reveals rebellion or sin in your life, turn to him in repentance and walk in a new way of life.