With Habakkuk we Cry

Thousands are dying from the Ebola virus.
Teenagers are killing and being killed by violence in the streets.
Racism still wreaks havoc on family and community life.
Governments are harassing civilians.
Severe weather kills people of all ages, even in their own homes.
War leaves towns, villages, cities ravaged and hopeless.
Media exploits that which is personal and sacred.
Despite efforts, poverty seems only to worsen.
Slavery persists despite education and awareness.
Your church experiences these no less, which we half expect, half cannot believe.

Where is the life you have promised us?
Where is the salvation?
With the prophets we cry out that we don't understand,
that we imagined things would look differently after the coming of Jesus.

We, too, wonder how long we will have to cry for help (Hab 1:2)
We, too, wonder if you care or are even listening (Hab 1:3)
We are desperate for justice, and skeptical that it will come (Hab 1:4)

You say to look, to wonder, to be amazed (1:5)
You say your works are so miraculous many would not believe when told (1:5b-11)

We, too, put on smiles, trying trust in your sovereignty and might (1:12-13)
We, too, fall to doubt again, accusing you of the worst we see and hear (1:13)
We believe ourselves to be hopeless pawns in your chess game (1:14-17)

You say that justice is coming with surety and without delay (2:2-11)
You say that your goodness transcends the works of men (2:12-20)

Yet.
We are invited into something much more than the erasing of hardship.
The invitation is to know and to be known by the living God, 
the suffering God.
It is to taste his goodness as it covers the earth as the waters do the sea.
It is to be awakened to life in Jesus, our holiness and perfection.
It is to be replaced by this Savior, 
to rejoice as we are killed and he is raised in us.
It is to be given new eyes, ears,  and tongues,
to see, hear, taste what we now cannot.

The destruction of all hypocrites is sure- just as you said.
But thanks be to God, who took this wrath upon himself,
not making a way around this sure destruction, but right through it.
You have suffered the most, and give us yourself even still.
We confess that we doubt you often, even cursing you at times.
We don't understand the ways in which you are working.
Yet we trust you to keep bringing death to us, 
that you might keep raising us too.

And so, with Habakkuk we cry:
"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,
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 my feet tread on my high places."
3:17-19