Habakkuk was confused. Injustice and suffering were going on all around him, and he wondered why God didn’t do something about it (Habakkuk 2:1). Didn’t God say he hated sin? Hadn’t the Judge promised to punish disobedience? Hadn’t he pledged to overcome enemies? Of course he had. So where was he?
We have the same questions when we see suffering and abuses around us, and though we know God has already won the victory and redeemed the world, the world seems not to have gotten the message. Why doesn’t he intervene? Where is his deliverance? It’s coming. The pain of this world has an expiration date. God is making all things new.
But he isn’t making all things new unilaterally. He has called us into the process. We are part of the prophecies of the end. We can’t afford to simply wait for Jesus to return; that’s not our mission. We’re called to express the culture of the kingdom that is coming. Yes, Jesus won the victory, but we are to demonstrate it everywhere we can. Where is God when the world suffers? He’s in us. We are, in many ways, the answer the prophet was looking for.
