What to do when life feels hopeless – Advent Hope, Part 4

This week I once again welcome guest blogger, Kirk Marks. Kirk is a retired pastor of 30 years who now works in international fair trade.

My favorite Old Testament minor prophet is Habakkuk. Habakkuk had a message of hope from God for people, but Habakkuk’s message doesn’t start out very hopeful.

Here’s how Habakkuk begins, “How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.” (Hab 1:2–4)

That doesn’t sound very hopeful, does it? But I suspect Habakkuk’s message sounds familiar. Doesn’t that sound like a lot of what we hear from a lot of our world and culture even today? “Justice isn’t working. Our justice system is paralyzed. It’s not bringing the results that we want. I see violence everywhere I look.”

We hear sentiments like that frequently. Violence is a big problem in our world today. Wrong is being tolerated. What Habakkuk is complaining about 2500 years ago sounds very familiar to us. Habakkuk is saying, “God, I don’t see you doing anything about these things that I’m upset with.”

Habakkuk is a strange book because God actually responds to him in a way that makes no sense. God doesn’t seem to answer Habakkuk’s question.

So Habakkuk comes back to God with a second complaint. In Habakkuk 1:13, he says, “Your eyes, God, are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”

Once again Habakkuk complains to God about the injustice of this word. Habakkuk is doing what Jesus taught us to do in the Beatitudes, which I mentioned in the previous post. Habakkuk is hungering and thirsting for righteousness as he cries out to God.

Then Habakkuk gives an interesting illustration in verses 14–17, “You have made people like the fish in the sea, like the sea creatures that have no ruler. The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food. Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?”

What is the point of Habakkuk’s illustration? He’s saying he sees the human race like fish in the sea. If you’ve ever fished, when you catch a fish, that fish is helpless. Once he’s got that hook in his mouth, he can’t do anything. Once he’s caught in a net, you’ve got him and you’re in control. Habakkuk says that’s how this world seems to him.

There are some people who have all the power, and everyone else are just like fish in their nets. The powerful rejoice, catching people in their nets and living in luxury. The world keeps going that way, leaving us wondering, “Does might make right?”

Does the mightiness of the mighty and the power of the powerful mean they are right? Does it mean that’s okay? Is that the way it’s always going to be? The questions we’re asking today, Habakkuk was asking 2,500 years ago. Where is the hope in all of this?

Habakkuk says in chapter 2, “I will stand my watch and station myself on the ramparts I will look to see what you will say to me and what answer I am to give to this complaint.”

Here’s Habakkuk, remaining hopeful in hopeless times, saying, “I’m waiting God What you gonna do? What are you gonna say?”

God gives an answer, and in the next post, we’ll discover what God says.

Photo by Amaury Gutierrez on Unsplash