Trust and Joy amid Aloneness and Trial

It’s in the darkest measure of pain that we look up in a cry for help or to shake our fist. Sure, there are other responses, but by far and away the commonest response is to be livid at God that such a thing has been done against us. It is a rarer response to look up and seek help. It is rarer still to look up and praise the Lord in a season where hope is laid waste, where joy has been vanquished, where peace may be a distant memory.

Then we might open our Bible to the majestically decisive ending of Habakkuk:

“Though the fig tree does not blossom,
    and no fruit is on the vines;
though the produce of the olive fails,
    and the fields yield no food;
though the flock is cut off from the fold,
    and there is no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will exult in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    and makes me tread upon the heights.”

— Habakkuk 3:17-20 (NRSV)

We read that passage and we’re struck by ‘though’, a symphony of three, and that ‘yet’ that follows.

Those of us who have been there, in unfathomable seasons of loss, where all vision of a normal life was swept away on a torrent that left nothing in its wake, know the certainty of the situation in focus.

Those who have never experienced such life-ending loss possibly don’t read this as a significant passage. But those who have are struck by the hope in such truth. They come back to passages like this. They make out of these passages life words — words they carry with them, that inspire hope during especially harried times; and indeed, these are words they carry in their hearts, gratefully, for the rest of their lives. Mine was Galatians 6:9 — “Do not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time you will reap a harvest if you do not give up.”

This Habakkuk passage reminds us that though the world would give up on us if we were unfruitful, God does not; indeed, that God is especially present with those who experience a vacuum of favour who also trust him implicitly. Those who call upon their Lord in pain, acknowledging their reliance on him who will eventually vindicate them, will experience the joy of the Lord.

Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash