Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

Welcome to the second week of our series called Habakkuk. In this series, we’re exploring a little Old Testament book called Habakkuk. We don’t talk about this book very much. Even people who read their Bible regularly don’t read this book very often. It’s really easy to gloss right over.

But in this series, God is reminding us that this book is still part of his inspired Word. It’s his book, which means that it contains his power.

Let’s pray, and then we’ll get into our second message from the book of Habakkuk.

Like we said last week, the prophet Habakkuk wrote this book during a time when God’s people, the Israelites, had been overthrown by the Babylonians. The Israelites had become so wicked that God punished them by allowing the Babylonians to take them captive. Habakkuk lived and ministered in a very dark time of Israel’s history. It was a time of misery and hopelessness. It felt like God was a million miles away from his people.

For some of us, that sounds pretty familiar. Because that’s where we are right now. A lot of us are in the middle of a pretty miserable stretch in our spiritual lives. The joy we once had is gone. We’re feeling absolutely stagnant. It seems like we’re a million miles away from God.

Habakkuk knows the feeling. Listen to the prayer that he wrote in Habakkuk 3:2. “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.” (Habakkuk 3:2, NIV)

This is one of my favorite verses in the book of Habakkuk. In fact, it’s become one of my favorite verses period. I love it because it’s so authentic. This verse is gut-level honesty. But I also love it because it gives us hope when our spiritual lives lose their luster. So let’s start unpacking this truth from Habakkuk.

Like I said, Habakkuk wrote this prayer during a very dark period in Israel’s history. God’s people had been overthrown by the Babylonians. And it seemed like God had gone silent. It seemed like God was content to let his people suffer and not do anything about it. It felt like God packed up and moved out. And this seemingly hopeless situation led the people toward spiritual apathy. If God didn’t care about them, then they didn’t care about him, either.

Some of you are feeling like that right now. You feel like you’re so far away from God. Maybe you and God were really tight at one time, but it’s just not that way anymore. You used to be passionate about your faith. But now instead of passion, it feels like you’ve been injected with spiritual Novocain. You just don’t feel much of anything anymore.

And the first thing you need to understand is that’s ok. What you’re feeling is ok. What you’re thinking is ok. It’s normal. Anyone who has been a Christian for any length of time has been through what you’re going through now. If they say they haven’t gone through these spiritually dry times, they’re lying to you. Every believer has experienced this. Everyone’s walk with God contains mountains and valleys. Even the most committed Christ-followers go through the valleys. We all have spiritual low points in our walk with Jesus.

Even Habakkuk, a prophet of God, wasn’t immune to this. He prayed, “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.” (Habakkuk 3:2, NIV)

Does it seem to you like all the awesome moves of God are in the past? That God just doesn’t move today like he did in the past? That’s the way Habakkuk felt. He told God, “I have heard of your fame.” I’ve heard about all the famous things you’ve done, in the past. I’ve heard about all the ways that you used to move in the lives of your people.

And it is awesome. Habakkuk said, “I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord.” The things you have done are awesome. I remember them and I am in awe.

In fact, Habakkuk spends most of chapter 3 talking about the awesome things that God has done. But it’s all past tense. It seemed like the awesome, powerful moves of God were ancient history. Habakkuk looked around and he didn’t see any evidence of God’s power. He was spiritually drained. The Israelite people were spiritually vacant.

So Habakkuk prayed, “Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.” God, all those awesome things you used to do…do it again. Renew them in our day. Do it again, in our time. Let us see your power in our lives instead of just in our history books.

This is an easy pattern for us to fall into. Just like Habakkuk, sometimes it seems like all the awesome things we know about God are from the past. Think about it. We come to church to hear messages from the Bible, which is by and large a collection of stories about God from the past.

We hear how God moved in mighty ways when he parted the Red Sea, or when he rescued Daniel from the lion’s den, or when he saved Jonah from drowning by sending a huge fish to swallow him. Amazing stories of God’s power…from the past.

Even when it comes to Jesus, it seems like so much of it is in the past. We hear about incredible miracles. Jesus turned water into wine. He helped blind people see and lame people walk. He raised people from the dead. He even rose from the dead himself. Incredible stuff…from the past.

And like Habakkuk, it’s really easy for us to begin to believe that all the amazing, miraculous moves of God are in the past tense. “God, that was really awesome stuff that you did back then, but can you do something now? It’s really cool to read all these amazing stories in the Bible, but can you do something in my life today?” Can anybody relate to that?

I can. There is a common misconception about pastors. People tend to believe that we’re always on fire spiritually. We’re always overflowing with passion for God. Our faith never stumbles. We never have spiritual dry seasons. It’s all mountains and no valleys.

That couldn’t be further from the truth. Last week, I read these words on a fellow pastor’s blog. Listen to what this minister wrote.

“I need to collect who I am and how I got here and burn the whole stinking thing. I have found myself in the same situations week after week and I’m ready to move on from them. I don’t exactly see how to do it, but I know I have to take a step. I want to quote scripture and feel peace and share love and give love, but I’ve allowed the enemy to take all that away from me and replace it with a dead nerve. I can’t get ahead because I gravitate to where I am not. It’s like the last year of my life has been a giant walk backwards. I want things to make sense again.”

He goes on.

“I’ve cried through the death, I’ve been broken by broken things, I’ve felt a new level of ‘low’ that hot showers and vacations can’t fix. I’ve reached the point where I finally have to say out loud that I can’t continue on my own like this. I’ve felt the prayers, but I apply them mostly as graffiti on a wall; like people just showing support. I’m not trying hard enough to work in conjunction with the prayers; to take the answers and solutions and use them. I need to somehow.

My head is throbbing, and I know it’s going to continue until I literally break. I truly believe that I’m as low as I can get with everything. My body seems to be deteriorating because it knows that I’m not taking care of anything fully. This WHOLE THING needs fixed, because I can’t do this. Any of it.”

Gang, that was written by a guy who is a minister in the local church. You think that we’re somehow immune to spiritual dry seasons? That it’s all mountaintops and no valleys? No way.

There is a risk in admitting this to you, but do you realize that there are times when I don’t feel like preaching? There are times when it feels like I’m telling stories from the Bible about how God used to do incredible things, but it feels like he’s not doing anything significant in my life. There are seasons when it feels like I’m incredibly far away from God.

And maybe that’s why this verse from Habakkuk resonates so much with me. Because I’ve been there. I’ve felt what the prophet was feeling. “God, did you use up all your power in the past? Are you going to do anything powerful in my life? Because I’m drying up. I’m withering away.” Almost all of us have been there. Some of us are there right now.

You kind of feel like Jeremiah when he wrote these verses in the book of Lamentations. “But LORD, you remain the same forever! Your throne continues from generation to generation. Why do you continue to forget us? Why have you abandoned us for so long?

Restore us, O LORD, and bring us back to you again! Give us back the joys we once had! Or have you utterly rejected us? Are you angry with us still?” (Lamentations 5:19-22, NLT)

These words were written by the prophet Jeremiah, who was a contemporary of Habakkuk. He saw the same things that Habakkuk saw. He experienced the same spiritual emptiness that Habakkuk experienced. And he cried out to God in the same way that Habakkuk did. “God, where are you? Have you forgotten us? God, restore us! Bring us back to you again! Give us the joys we used to have! Or have you just completely given up on us?”

These probably aren’t the words that you were expecting to hear from the Bible today, but I’m not making any of this up. This is all straight Scripture. God’s people have always struggled through times of spiritual emptiness.

So let’s talk about what we can do when we find ourselves in a spiritual valley. First of all, did you notice how honest these prophets were? Habakkuk and Jeremiah just laid it all out before God. They didn’t hold anything back. They didn’t try to flower it up. They didn’t couch their complaints and requests in a bunch of religious language. They just told God what was in their hearts. They had seen God’s people obliterated by the Babylonians, and they let it all out.

“God, where are you? What are you doing? Why do I feel so far away from you? Why does it seem like you have left us behind?”

And you know what? God didn’t strike them dead. He didn’t barbecue them because of their doubts. He didn’t wipe them out because their faith was wavering. Actually, he did just the opposite. God honored them because of their honesty.

As a pastor, I do my fair share of counseling. I’m not a professional counselor by any means, so I refer a lot of people to a licensed counselor. But I still spend time with people who are struggling and hurting because of various issues in their lives. And one thing that I used to do in those situations was I would try to defend God. I would try to stand up for him. I would tell people that they shouldn’t be angry with him. They should never question him.

There are a couple of problems with that. First of all, God doesn’t need me to defend him. The Lord is quite capable of handling the situation. God never placed me on a retainer to be his defense attorney. He can make his own case without my input.

And second, look at what the prophets Habakkuk and Jeremiah wrote. They openly questioned God. They were angry. They were frustrated. They were hurting. They wondered if God had abandoned them. And they had a faith in God that allowed them to express all of that to their Heavenly Father.

I can’t imagine someone teaching my sons that there are some things that they could never tell me. I can’t imagine anyone telling my boys that they couldn’t be completely honest with me. I’m their dad. I care about them intensely. I love them deeply. And I want to know exactly what they’re feeling, exactly what they’re going through, exactly what they’re struggling with. I want them to know that they can tell me anything.

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I realized that telling someone not to be completely honest with God doesn’t help them…it hurts them. It teaches them that they can’t be completely forthright and totally honest with God. It teaches them that God is a cosmic dictator who can never be questioned instead of a loving Father who cares about what they are experiencing in their lives.

If you’re in the middle of a spiritual valley, the first step to getting out of it is being completely honest with God about what’s going on. He can take it. And by the way, God already knows how you feel. So if you try to hide it from him, he knows you’re lying.

The Bible says in 1 Peter, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7, NIV)

This is a command for authenticity. If you’re going to follow this Scriptural command, you’ve got to be willing to be honest with God. And if you’re not willing to do that, prepare for a long stay in your spiritual valley.

And as you are open and honest and real with God, go into it understanding this truth. God wants to move in your life now. He does. He wants to do a powerful work in your life. If he is not, then there is a reason for that.

Maybe he isn’t working powerfully in your life because there is sin in your life. This was the case with the Israelites during Habakkuk’s life. God had gone silent and allowed the Babylonians to conquer his people because they had become so wicked. Their sin stopped the work of God in their lives.

If you’re feeling like you’re incredibly far from God right now, is it because there is a sin in your life that you have allowed to go unchecked? We all have sin in our lives, but when that sin goes unconfessed, unrepented, and unchallenged, it will drive the power of God right out of our lives.

If your spiritual life is dying or dead, this is where you have to start. If it feels like God has left you, the question you have to ask is are you actually the one who left him? Is there sin in my life?

But, this isn’t always the case. There are other times when God allows us to experience spiritual deserts, and we’re not sure why at the time.

Check out this Scripture from the book of Exodus. This is what the Bible says that God did after he rescued his people from their slavery in Egypt.

“When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea.” (Exodus 13:17-18, NIV)

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But sometimes the shortest way isn’t the best way. When God rescued his people from their slavery in Egypt, he knew he couldn’t send them through the Philistine country. It was the shortest route to the Promised Land, but it was also too dangerous. If the Philistines declared war on the Israel, the Israelites would fall apart. They weren’t ready for that. So instead, God led them the long way around…through the desert.

Are you in the desert right now? Are you in a place of monotony in your spiritual life? Are you praying a prayer that seems to be met with nothing but silence?

Maybe God is honing and perfecting your character. Maybe he is trying to teach you something about patience and faith. God is infinitely wise, and He knows what you need, when you need it. He’s navigating your route according to His limitless knowledge. Sometimes God takes us through the desert because it’s all we can handle at the moment. He may need to keep us in the desert so he can prepare us for whatever is coming next.

But, even when we’re in the desert, God hasn’t left us. It may feel like he left us. We may not see any evidence of his presence. But he has promised to never leave us.

Listen to these words from the book of Isaiah. “For this is what the high and lofty One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. (Isaiah 57:15, NIV)

God is omnipresent. He is everywhere at one time. He is in the highest heavens, but he is also with you in the valley. He has not and will never leave you. But not only is he with you, look at what he promises to you.

He promises to revive your heart and your spirit. If you’re in a spiritual valley, God isn’t going to let you stay there forever. Maybe there is a sin in your life that needs to be dealt with. Maybe he’s trying to teach you something. But whatever the reason for this dry time in your spiritual life, God will not leave you there forever.

Habakkuk was crying out to God, asking him to move in a powerful way again. Begging God to show his power like he had in the past. He was pleading with God to show mercy instead of anger and wrath to his people.

God answered. It wasn’t immediate. But God heard the prayers of his people. He felt their pain. He saw the incredible spiritual valley that they were in. And he responded.

There’s another little Old Testament book that a lot of us rarely read called Zephaniah. It comes right after the book of Habakkuk in your Bible. Zephaniah was another contemporary of Habakkuk. He saw everything that Habakkuk saw. He prayed many of the same things that Habakkuk prayed. And Zephaniah tells us how God responded.

Listen to these absolutely incredible words that Zephaniah wrote. “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.

At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you; I will rescue the lame and gather those who have been scattered. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame.

At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes,” says the LORD.” (Zephaniah 3:17, 19-20, NIV)

God’s people were in the desert of slavery. But God heard the faithful prayers of Habakkuk and Zephaniah and others like them. He allowed his people to go through the desert, but he didn’t leave them there.

And he’s not going to leave you there, either. You may be in the desert, in a spiritual valley. Maybe you’ve been there for a while. But God will not leave you there.

Listen to these words from Zephaniah again. Some of the most beautiful and powerful words in the Bible. “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17, NIV)

God will not leave you in the desert. And maybe today is the day when he takes you by the hand and starts to lead you home. Right now, in this moment, stop and listen to him.

No matter where you are, God is mighty enough to save you. He can rescue you, no matter how far you’ve fallen. The cross of Jesus Christ proves that. His death for our sins proves that we can’t fall too far to be rescued by the love and grace of God.

God is mighty to save and he takes great delight in you. He wants to quiet you with his love. To give you peace. To give you hope. He wants to sing over you. He loves you so much that it causes him to sing. A song of love and forgiveness and hope.

He has not and will never leave you. He is able to rescue you from whatever desert you’re in. Take his hand. Let him lead you home.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: Habakkuk, refreshment, revival, Zephaniah