Habakkuk 3:17-19 are some of the most incredible words spoken in the terrifying face of relentless destruction and disasters.
The beginning of this passage gives us a distressing picture of devastation and emptiness.
“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls. (Hab. 3:17).
Habakkuk describes what would have been a tragedy for a farmer in those days, for what did you have if your animals, your fields, and your food had been demolished?
If our homes, possessions, health, and money were gone, and nothing but suffering surrounded us would we be crushed to utter despair or would we remember the words of hope Habbakuk reminds us of?
“Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength;he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.”
I have attended multiple funerals for believers, and while they have been extremely difficult and hard, we always sing God's praises and remember His faithfulness and the hope of eternal life that awaits us and the ones we lost. What a blessing for us as believers to have such hope and joy to sing in the face of great pain and loss.
David Mathis, author, and writer, said about the final part of Habbakuk,
"Among the many ways God may inspire his church in the coming days, we at least have one clue from Habakkuk what such patience and joy sounds like: singing. That’s the stunning and unusual way this short interaction between the prophet and God ends — with the prophet singing praise. That’s why he ends with directions for corporate worship: 'To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.' These final lines are not only a prayer. They are a song for others to join."
So let us sing in faith even though healing and answers may not come in this lifetime. A future of rest and peace awaits us in Heaven with Jesus so let us continue to say with Habbakuk, "Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation." (Habbakuk 3:18).
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