Why?

O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,

and you will not hear?

Or cry to you “Violence!”

and you will not save?

Why do you make me see iniquity,

and why do you idly look at wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

So the law is paralyzed,

and justice never goes forth.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

so justice goes forth perverted.

Habakkuk 1:2-4

“Why?” is the easiest question to ask in our pain and the hardest and sometimes longest answer to get. In the case of the prophet Habakkuk the question voices the pain of the sins of God’s people seemingly going unpunished. Wicked Israelite leaders had the power. The poor and the few righteous people who cared about worshiping the Lord were oppressed. This pain and injustice did not align with the truth that Habakkuk believed about God.

But it is often the case in a world marred by sin that human violence, oppression, destruction, strife, and contention will stain life experiences. This is true today! And in that kind of wicked culture, God’s truth in not honored by the cultural leaders. God’s standard of justice is completely unattainable in those circumstances. Sin is always a cruel tyrant.

When we raise our questions in the pain, God hears us. God quickly assured Habakkuk that He had a response waiting for all this evil oppression the prophet experienced. The Chaldeans were poised to invade and wipe out the cruel oppressors among God’s people (Habakkuk 1:5-14). The oppressors would experience from an occupying army a bitter cruelty and injustice that they had done to their countrymen themselves. And even though it would be painful to go from one oppressor to another, God was in control. Habakkuk could eventually rejoice knowing God would keep His covenant by bringing the curses of the Law but would eventually restore the people after a season. His judgment is tempered in mercy so that even the leanest of times that we thought would never come and seem unthinkable to us will draw us to worship Him (Habakkuk 3:17-19).