Don't lose hope!!!

"O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you, 'Violence!' and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous - therefore judgment comes forth perverted."

(Habakkuk 1:2-4)

It's as if the writer of the book of Habakkuk penned his words in 2017. With the news of another African-American man gunned down by police (and he as riding a bicycle!)... with the aftermath of the horrific massacre in Las Vegas still echoing in our hearts... with racial tensions seemingly at an all-time high (if that's even possible!)... with poverty, homelessness, weather-related tragedies, immigration, and all all sorts of injustices on the front page of every day's papers... Habakkuk CLEARLY has a message for us today.

Initially, of course, the connection is that injustice, violence, and destruction are all around us, and that's UNACCEPTABLE! Our stomachs are sick every time we hear a new story. Why can't se just get along?!?!? we wonder? Why don't we all see each other as people of WORTH? As beloved children of God? ALL OF US?!?!?

Habakkuk's response is two-fold. First, he knows that God has called him dos and up and point out both the injustice AND the vision of the Kingdom of God. "I will stand at my watch post and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me... the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it..." (Hab. 2:1-2). The Kingdom of God will come - on earth as it is in Heaven. But it seems so far off, doesn't it? Fear not. Share the vision of equality, justice, love, grace and mutual affection for all.

But in the meantime, we also have one of my favorite passages in all of scripture. Habakkuk 3:17-19. This is how we endure until that comes to pass: "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 int he LORD; I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the LORD, is my strength; he makes my feet like the beet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights."

Though there may be no signs of hope or reconciliation in the world (or at least it may seem like that), fear not. Hope in the LORD! God can lift us up as a people. Let us keep our eyes on the One who Created, Redeemed, and Sustains us.