Awhile back, I heard about some studies that have been done recently on the benefits of prayer. Researchers were discovering, to their surprise, that prayer is immensely beneficial, that people with a strong prayer life have more resources for dealing with difficult things. They couldn’t help coming to the conclusion that prayer is a good thing, that prayer is very effective therapy. The reports I heard didn’t have anything to say about the object of prayer; there wasn’t much concern about whether or not there is anyone there listening to our prayers. The whole point was that prayer tends to make people feel better. We tend to function better as human beings if prayer, any kind of prayer, is a regular part of our lives.
Now, I don’t want to dismiss this. I think these researchers were discovering something that is true about us as people made in God’s image: we’re made in such a way that we function better when prayer is part of our lives. We could go even further and say that if we never pray at all our humanness is diminished. God has made us to commune with Him for eternity, and when this part of our lives is not functioning we are less than what He created us to be. We function better, we’re better off on the whole, when prayer is a regular part of our lives.
But then, having said that, we need to recognize that this is an inadequate view of prayer. Prayer does tend to be therapeutic, but prayer is more than therapy. Prayer does tend to benefit us emotionally and psychologically, but prayer is about more than making us feel better. When we come into God’s presence in prayer, we are not in control of the outcome. We never know what God is going to do in response to our prayers. When we make prayer a regular part of our lives, no doubt we will experience some emotional benefits, but we need to be careful not to reduce prayer to this. When we come before God in prayer, we’re involved in something we don’t fully understand, something that’s beyond us. We’re not the ones in control. We’re interacting with the living, sovereign God. We’re in relationship with the One who rules the universe, who acts in His own ways and according to His own wisdom. We can see this clearly in this short book of Habakkuk.
Notice, first of all, that Habakkuk’s prayer is a dialogue. The first two chapters of this book are in dialogue form; Habakkuk speaks, then God replies. Habakkuk is a man of prayer; we have some of his prayers recorded in this book. But his prayer isn’t over when he stops speaking. He speaks to God, but his relationship with God involves more than speaking. He speaks, then waits in anticipation for God to answer him. His prayer is part of a relationship.
During the first few years after I became a Christian I read about people who spent large amounts of time in prayer. I read David Brainerd’s diary, where he describes whole days that he set aside for prayer and fasting, while he was serving as a missionary among the American Indians. I read about George Whitefield and John Wesley, who became great evangelists because they were people who knew God, who spent hours in prayer. I read that E.M. Bounds, who wrote several books on prayer, spent 6 or more hours in prayer each day. And there were lots of others, enough to depress me with my own inadequacies. So I decided, at one point, that I should set aside two hours each day for prayer.
The problem was, what was I to do during that time? I know this might not be a problem for everyone, but I found myself wondering how these great Christians found so many things to talk about in God’s presence for hours each day. I quickly ran out of things to talk about, so I’d sing hymns and choruses, but then I felt guilty, because I thought I wasn’t really filling the time with prayer like I wanted to. I made lists and prayed through missionary prayer letters, trying to fill up more of the time. But I got bored doing that day after day. I’ve since that time realized that my understanding of prayer was too limited. I don’t doubt that these great people who spent hours each day in prayer were doing more than making requests the whole time. Prayer includes worship, singing in God’s presence, and sitting before Him in silence. We don’t need to fill all the time with chatter. Habakkuk speaks in God’s presence, but then he stops and waits. He’s willing to be silent before God.
The second thing to notice is that Habakkuk brings before God the deepest concerns of his heart. He complains to God about the things that are overwhelming him. He’s free to speak the truth to God; he doesn’t feel compelled to dress up his prayers to make them acceptable. When I was a young Christian I remember speaking to an older Christian about something difficult that had happened. I don’t remember what the incident was, but I do remember this man’s response. He said, “I don’t know, but I do know that we don’t have the right to ask God why this happened.” So I didn’t. I accepted this man’s word for it, since he was older and more mature as a Christian than I was.
But listen to Habakkuk: “Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?” He feels free to ask God “why.” Things are not right in the nation. Habakkuk is living before the nation was taken into captivity in Babylon, but we don’t know the exact time. He gives us almost no information about himself. But we do know that he was living in a time of serious spiritual decline. These people who were called by God’s name were acting unjustly, persecuting those who spoke the truth.
Here’s an example from Jeremiah, who may have been a contemporary of Habakkuk (and even if they didn’t know each other, they lived in similar circumstances). Jeremiah had been prophesying, speaking in God’s name and at His command, and because of it was beaten and put into the stocks. Here’s Jeremiah’s response: “O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long” (20:7-8). God’s people are acting wickedly, even to the point of persecuting His prophets. That’s what Habakkuk is complaining about in verses 1-4: why does God keep putting up with this? Why does He tolerate wrong?
The distress of living in the midst of wickedness has often been difficult for God’s people. Peter says that Lot, Abraham’s nephew, who lived in Sodom just before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, was “sick of all the immorality and wickedness around him. Yes, he was a righteous man who was distressed by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day” (2 Peter 2:7-8, New Living Translation). Following Jesus brings us into conflict with the ways of this world. In this fallen world, the wicked often prosper and succeed. They oppress others and get away with it, and often it seems like their lives are charmed. The author of Psalm 73 struggled with this problem: “For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills. Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.... This is what the wicked are like--always carefree, they increase in wealth” (Psalm 73:3-6, 12). It’s not very difficult to find examples of this in our own society. And watching this causes us to grieve. But the psalmists and prophets don’t just grieve. They don’t just get depressed about it. They cry out to God in their distress. That’s what Habakkuk is doing in these early verses.
Part of Habakkuk’s prayer life involves complaining to God, instead of complaining to others. I’m afraid our tendency is too often just the opposite. Maybe we’re not comfortable with the idea of bringing our complaints to God. Maybe we feel like we need to be at our best in prayer and feel guilty about venting these emotions in God’s presence. These things don’t seem spiritual enough to be part of our prayer lives. But then what often happens is that we vent our frustrations to one another. And things just get worse. We become more angry and resentful at the situation, and the more we talk about it the more we realize our powerlessness to bring about any change. It’s far better to bring these things into God’s presence in prayer. Habakkuk cries out to God with the deepest concerns of his heart.
The third thing to notice is this: in response to Habakkuk’s prayer, God does something that Habakkuk could never have anticipated, something he wouldn’t have believed even if he were told: “The Lord replied, ‘Look at the nations and be amazed! Watch and be astounded at what I will do! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if somebody told you about it. I am raising up the Babylonians to be a new power on the world scene. They are a cruel and violent nation who will march across the world and conquer it” (NLT). Habakkuk has been praying about the wickedness of his own people, but these people God is raising up are clearly worse. How can this be an answer to his prayers? It doesn’t make sense (and he addresses this complaint to God in his next prayer).
We need to know, in coming before God, that His ways are not our ways: “‘I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.’ God’s Decree. ‘For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think” (Isaiah 55:8-9, The Message). In coming before God, we need to know that there are mysteries that surpass our understanding. He is God, and we are not (that’s the thing that comes across clearly in the book of Job). As creatures, our calling is to humble ourselves before the ultimate mystery of our infinite God. There is much about Him, and much about our relationship with Him, that we don’t understand. When we come into His presence in prayer, we’re in over our heads. We’re not in control of the outcome, and much of the time we don’t even fully understand what we’re doing.
God is wiser than we are, and He is doing things that exceed our comprehension right now. How could Habakkuk have ever imagined that this infinite God, shrouded in the mystery of unapproachable light, would a few hundred years later be born of a virgin? How could he have ever guessed that this God, who seemed unconcerned about the sins and suffering of His people, would one day die on the cross to bear the weight of the world’s sin? God is wiser than we are, and He is doing things that exceed our comprehension right now. His perspective is larger than ours. He’s proven Himself to be trustworthy. Our calling, as His people, is to humble ourselves before Him, recognizing that He is God and we are not.
If we want to pray like Habakkuk prayed, we need to get beyond the idea that prayer is nothing more than asking things from God. Here are two exercises that can help in this area. Spiritual exercises are ways of training ourselves spiritually, just as physical exercises train our bodies to do things we couldn’t do otherwise. 1) The first is a prayerful reading of Scripture called Lectio Divina (which is just Latin for divine reading). Set aside 10 minutes to read through a short passage of Scripture. Begin by asking God to speak to you, then read the passage out loud. Then read it again, slowly, and pray in response to it. Allow God to speak to you through the Word, and let your prayer be a response to His speaking. Don’t force it, just keep reading through the passage until you have something to pray about. Then, for the last few minutes, sit in silence, attentive to God in the presence of this passage you’ve just been reading. Don’t try to do anything during this time; just be attentive to God. When your mind wanders, bring it back to the text. And then end the time by giving thanks.
2) The second exercise is a form of silent, contemplative prayer. Set aside the last 5-10 minutes of your prayer time for silent prayer. The point of this prayer is not to coerce God into speaking to you. We don’t have control over God in that way. This prophecy of Habakkuk is something he “received” (v.1), something given by God in His own time and way. The point is to be attentive to God, to be silent in His presence. It’s helpful to have a word or phrase to help bring your attention back when your mind starts to wander (something simple: “Jesus,” or “Father,” or “Lord help me”). Each time your mind wanders, use your word to bring your attention back to God. Simply sit in his presence, and then end the time by slowly praying the Lord’s Prayer. Both of these exercises are ways of stopping our own incessant chatter and turning our attention to God Himself.
When we come before God in prayer, we’re involved in something we don’t fully understand, something that’s beyond us. We’re not the ones in control. We’re interacting with the living, sovereign God. We’re in relationship with the One who rules the universe, who acts in His own ways and according to His own wisdom. We’re in relationship with the One who “sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). It’s because God is wiser, more powerful, and more loving than we are that we are able to be rescued from our sins.
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