Spend time in prayer and silence with God asking Him to meet with you and speak to you.
Bible Reading
The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet received. How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.
– Habakkuk 1:1-4
Devotion
Habakkuk was written as a dialogue between God and the prophet. In these opening verses, we see the prophet’s statement of the problems which troubled his soul. The first was the apparent indifference of God both to his prayer and to the condition of prevailing evil. Habakkuk saw that the leaders in Judah were oppressing the poor, so he asked the question as to why God allowed those wicked people to prosper. This cycle of destruction, injustice, and violence that Habakkuk describes are true for every culture where God’s Words are ignored.
The Big Question
Like Habakkuk, we have all cried out, “How long O Lord?” Have you ever been the victim of injustice? Have you ever suffered and wished the suffering in this world would go away? Have you watched while evil people succeed in life and wondered why he/she gets away with it? Have you ever talked to God and felt like He wasn’t listening? Welcome to Habakkuk’s party: he feels/thinks/asks all of these things. Amidst personal and cultural experiences of injustice, do you ever wonder where God is?
Conclude your time in prayer and silence reflecting on what God has revealed to you today.