Rejoice Anyway
Learn to rejoice in the Who when you don’t understand the Why.
I often wonder why I fail to get ahead when trying to do what is right compared to those who have no intention of living by the same rules. The Prophet Habakkuk felt the same when he penned his prophecy on behalf of Judah. Habakkuk asked God two questions.
1) Why would God allow evil to remain unpunished?
2) Why would God bring calamity to His people from the heathens?
We are often told not to ask God the WHY question but to accept the outcome. Yet, in the Old Testament, when the Prophet Habakkuk witnessed Judah's leadership failing to live by the Torah, he asked God why He allowed such evil to continue. When God revealed that He would use Babylon's king to punish His people, Habakkuk became displeased and asked again why God would use a more evil person to punish His people. Is God condoning evil? Similarly, many people today question political leaders' decisions on human rights issues. For instance, under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, the U.S. government apologized for Japanese American internment during World War II. It provided reparations of $20,000 to each survivor to compensate for property and liberty loss during that period. However, the brutal treatment of the enslaved descendants of Africans who endured slavery and Jim Crow laws in America continues to exist in this country without reparations. Such laws disproportionately affect the poor and vulnerable, while individuals like me wonder why those in power allow such inequity. These modern-day concerns echo Habakkuk's struggle to understand justice from God’s perspective.
Remember, God reminds Prophet Habakkuk that He sees injustice and knows that the King of Babylon lacks integrity.
Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. Habakkuk 3:4
However, God alerts the prophet that His people must live by Faith instead of justifying what is right and wrong. In other words, humans flaw this justice system with biases, corruption, selfishness, and limited knowledge. Unlike God's omniscient judgment, personal interests sway our human justice. Therefore, our human justice system is temporal, leading to temporal rewards like reparations, while God's justice system has an eternal benefit. As such, the prophet Habakkuk relied on God's justice instead of human justice. He trusted and rejoiced in God's judgment and His righteousness.
Like Habakkuk, we must embrace the beauty of the present moment, even when the reasons behind life's challenges remain a mystery. This perspective, rooted in Prophet Habakkuk’s prophesy, can bring hope and optimism. It encourages us to find joy in the WHO, even when we lack an understanding of the WHY.