“How long, Lord, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?” Habakkuk 1:2

Habakkuk waits, he waits for an answer, he waits for justice. He waits for deliverance. Chaldeans are relentlessly sweeping through cities, leaving devastation and broken lives behind. Habakkuk waits for the season of injustice to be done. He has seen enough of violence, enough of pain, enough of wondering where God is and when God will come and save.

This ancient prophet asks questions that we ask, when we see or experience injustice. We wonder why God’s response to our pain is not immediate, why so slow and long in coming? For surely God knows and sees when evil is being done.

Yet, In the midst of his many questions, about the slow response of God, Habakkuk expects an answer. The prophet does not waver in his certainty that God hears his complaint and will respond. “I will stand at my watch post,” he says, “station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what God will say to me and what God will answer concerning my complaint.” Habakkuk 2:1

God’s responds with a word of hope, “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end and does not lie. If it seems to tarry wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” Habakkuk 2:2-3

These words have spoken to me in difficult times, with the promise, there is an answer coming. While I may not see is at that moment, I’m reminded God is at work in my life and in the life of the world. Habakkuk must have found great encouragement in the promise, even as the answer requires more waiting, more trusting, more believing in God’s providence and care.

Habakkuk can see no answers other than a promise, someday, there will be a better time. Someday there will be real justice. It was the hope of people living in the Jim Crow era, waiting for liberation, or Nelson Mandela’s long years in prison.

But how does one wait for that “Appointed time,” when a person is suffering the ravages of injustice now? How does one hold on, when the vision is not in sight? How does one keep believing during the long suffering?

Habakkuk clings to hope, a hope based upon his knowledge of a God who cares, who will respond, and right the injustice in his land. With confidence he proclaims: “Though the fig tree does not blossom and no fruit is on the vine; though the produce of the olive fails and the field yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exalt in the God of my salvation. God the Lord is my strength; God makes my feet like the feet of a deer and makes me tread upon the heights.” Habakkuk 3:17-19

For Habakkuk has learned, with saints before and after him, whatever he may face, God will be with him. God will give him strength to endure, until God fulfills the promise, of a “Vision for the appointed time.”