Daily Devotions

Habakkuk 1: 2
How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?

We see here the frustrations of Habakkuk as he sees the ill treatment that the people were receiving from the oppressions of the authorities. There was rampant corruption and lawlessness in the country. The rulers were robbing and stealing all the wealth from the people.

In vs 9 we read; ‘woe to him who covets evil gain for his house.’ This tells us that though God is not punishing the evil men immediately it is not that God had not noticed the evil deeds that are going on. The only thing is God is not like men who react impulsively. God is patient and gives room for the evil people to repent. They would be surely punished in God’s timing.

Sometimes we just could not understand the way that God judges against the evil people. If it’s up to us, we would have reacted immediately. Instead we read in Hak 2: 20 ‘But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him.’ This means that the evil men must also be submitted to God for He will surely rise and bring them down.

This is the same felling that many believers are facing in many countries worldwide. The amount of evil deeds that are being done in many countries worldwide seem to baffle us. We do wonder why God is allowing so many wicked and evil leaders in the world that are corrupt and causing hardship to the people through their evil deeds of corruption and theft of national wealth.

In fact in the majority of countries including the most powerful nations, those who are in power seem to have abuse their position and have used them to gain immense wealth unlawfully. What we see are the replica of what Habakkuk saw during his time. In fact there are so much oppression from the rulers that the faith of believers are challenged but praise God that His people are faithful to His word and they would not waver but trust in Him completely.

We see the Christians in such persecuted nations standing firm and holding on to their faith because they know that the judgement belongs to God whether it is for now or in the future. This is what Habakkuk is teaching us, though events of the day seem to be unfair and lawless, we can trust in God to deal with these lawless people if not in this world then for sure He will deal with them in the next.

Our vision is to gain the inheritance not of his world but of the next. Just as hundreds of thousands of believers have paid the ultimate price for their faith, they are now standing in the presence of God as their reward and inheritance. They have gained their crowns of glory as Paul had reminded us.

Let us therefore not look at the evil and lawless men around us but let us look towards inheriting the crown of glory and righteousness that Jesus had promised us.