Habakkuk is one of the lesser known prophets who prophesizes to the people of Judah both warning them of the impending doom and telling them that those who are just will not perish. This prophecy seems to look forward to the coming of the Messiah as well.
Prophecy is an interesting thing as we have talked about before.
These are turbulent times for Judah, Israel had already fallen and it wouldn't be long before Judah met the same plight and the survivors exiled into Babylon. But Habakkuk lets them know that God will not abandon them, but everything is in God's time.
Just as the Israelites had to wait for their return to Judah, and they had to wait for the appointed time for the Messiah to come, we need to wait for the answers to our prayers.
Unfortunately, patience is not always one of our virtues. I know it isn't usually one of mine!
We read in the psalms, "My time is not your time." God's ways are not our ways either, and both of those descriptions of how God acts is problematic to us who want God to answer our prayers in the way that we want them as well as on our timetable.
Judah will be overcome by the Babylonians and they will have to wait until Cyrus invades Babylon that the Israelites are allowed to return. The Jewish people will need to wait or more than another six hundred years for the timing to be right for the Messiah to come.
And we will receive God's answers in God's time and the answers will be the correct ones even if they are not the ones we wanted or expected.
