Faith and severe distress

One can be in severe turmoil and yet have a genuine and vital faith. Notice how Habakkuk expresses his turmoil: I heard and my insides trembled, at the voice, my lips quivered; rottenness enters into my bones and my legs tremble beneath me. Whatever it was, it just was not something mental in his head, but it affected his bodily reactions as well. What was it that he heard? Well, the same thing that he heard in Habakkuk 3:2, and in Habakkuk 1:5–6, namely, God’s Word; that God was raising up the Chaldeans/the Babylonians, to come in as his instrument of judgment and devastate the land of Judah, his people Judah who had been faithless to him. That is what [Habakkuk] hears. He knows that he, along with the rest of God’s believing remnant, is going to face the Babylonian invasion, and it affects him. He is thrown into turmoil over that.

You see, he hears God’s Word of judgment against the people of Judah and he believes that word, and because he believes that word, he is thrown into turmoil and distress over it. There is nothing that he can do…There is nothing I can do to turn aside the coming of the Babylonians, as God uses them to judge us and take our land. All I can do is brace myself to endure it. I must wait quietly for the day of distress.

But notice that it is precisely because he believes; precisely because he has faith that he is thrown into such turmoil and distress. It is because he believes what God said, that he was so upset… Sometimes, when you are so overwhelmed and when you are upset and when you are thrown into such turmoil, it is not a sign of the absence of faith but of the presence of faith. Such disturbance is not necessarily a sign or a contradiction of faith but an expression of faith. Look at Habakkuk, how it worked with him. It was precisely because he believed God’s word of judgment that he was so upset. The turmoil was the fruit of his faith.¹

Ralph Davis