by Harriet E. Michael

“Look at the nations and watch — and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told” (Habakkuk 1:5).

This was God’s answer to Habakkuk’s complaint — his prayer, his cry to God. In verse 2, Habakkuk says, “How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?”

So here’s the situation. Habakkuk is praying, seeking answers as he has been for a long time, but he doesn’t feel that God is listening. Yet when God does finally answer, He says He’s already at work. Habakkuk just needs to look with an observing eye to see how God is working. It’s a marvelous work that Habakkuk would not believe had he been told.

Just how was God working in Habakkuk’s day? The king of Babylon had overturned the Assyrian Empire, subduing one nation after another. Israel’s turn to be subdued would be soon. Habakkuk’s words were not intended for the heathen but for the Jews, for them to consider the work God was doing and His providence for the nations.

This work was the destruction of the Jewish nation, city, and temple by the Chaldeans. As disastrous as it may have seemed, it was nonetheless Providence — according to the will of God and by His direction.

Some living then would see this devastation happen, though the thing was so incredible, they would not believe it ever could come to pass. There are reasons for this attitude. One was the Chaldeans were good friends and allies of the Jewish people, or so they thought. Why would the Chaldeans turn on them and subdue them?

Another reason was that the Jews were the covenant people of God. They thought He would never give them into the hands of another nation. Therefore, when the people were told repeatedly about it by the prophets of the Lord, especially by Jeremiah, they didn’t believe it. That’s what was happening in Habakkuk’s day.

Sometimes we, too, experience what feels like God’s destructive work in our lives. I have seen God act in a way that I would never have believed if He had told me.

I’m a writer today because of a difficult situation someone dear to me struggled through. As I struggled next to her, I longed to know more about prayer because I wanted my prayers for her to be effective. I began my own study of prayer as it is seen throughout Scripture and journaled what I found. This study ended up becoming my first book and whetted my desire to write biblical nonfiction pieces like this one.

My loved one’s journey is not something I saw coming, and certainly not something I would have ever wanted. My pain for her was also something I would rather not have experienced. But God brought fruit from adversity in both my life and hers, as He so often does. What can we learn from Habakkuk’s experience? That when God is at work, things don’t always run smoothly according to how we think they should be. We also learn that even when we think God is not hearing our prayers, He is. He is already at work, sometimes in ways we could not imagine. We need only to look around and see what God is already doing.