Wrestling with Injustice: How God Meets Us in Our Suffering

      “How long, 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 wronging?” 

     The book of Habakkuk offers a complex insight into the character of God, justice, and the role the people of God play. Like many believers in the modern-day church, Habakkuk wrestles with God on the timing and method of His justice. “Habakkuk engages Yahweh in an argument, not one limited to concerning his own needs or suffering, but those of his people. Yahweh does not rebuke him for engaging in this argument; Yahweh’s answers do put him in his place”[1]

        Habakkuk is speaking to God on behalf of the people. He longed to see the justice that his ancestors described. While Habakkuk does not receive the answer that he wants, he is encouraged by God’s character, justice, and sovereignty. What can Habakkuk teach us about how we can respond in the face of injustice and the character of God?  

God’s justice versus our own

       Habakkuk comes to God to share his lament over the corruption, wickedness, and sin within God’s people. The historical context of Habakkuk’s letter is filled with political and social unrest. This time was “characterized by rapid political change, international turmoil, bloody military encounters, and a growing rebellion against the demands of the covenant by the great majority in Judah.”[2] Upon asking for God to act as he did in the past, God responds that he is sending a foreign nation to punish Israel’s sin by destroying the Kingdom of Judah. This news must have been heartbreaking for Habakkuk. Yes, Habakkuk wanted justice. However, did he want the Kingdom destroyed? Additionally, God was going to use a more sinful nation to do so. What about God’s promise to his people, Israel?

      In God’s response, he gives Habakkuk hope by promising to hold Babylon accountable for their sins as well and that God will remain faithful to his people. God, in his power and sovereignty, would use the rise and fall of a foreign nation to show all the nations that he is Yahweh. The chapter ends with a prayer from Habakkuk praising God and placing his full trust in the Lord.

What does this mean for us today?

     Coming out of election season, our country feels more divided than ever. Habakkuk contains such a rich and complex understanding of God’s justice. Many of us may be wrestling with where God is during this time. It also challenges the expectations we place on God. “God is just only if God acts according to our schedule and if God agrees with our evaluation of what is just and what is fair and who is evil and who is not fair.”[3] To understand God’s justice is to see God’s actions and sovereignty in his time and according to his will. Baker describes this as “his understanding of the ways of his people and the needs of his people.”[4] This required Habakkuk to change his thinking. God was not being inconsistent or unfaithful. Rather, it is because he is just that the Kingdom of Judah and Israel fell.

      So, what about how we feel? Am I just meant to suffer in silence? The concept of lament is a key theme in the book of Habakkuk. At first glance, it can be hard to see the relationship between lament and justice. However, it combines a framework to understand how limited human justice is compared to God’s justice. Baker describes lament as the language of anger; however, I argue that lament is much deeper. Lament is the anguish, pain, grief, anger, and hope in God. It is a cry for God’s help, for Him to make things right. While we differ in our definition of lament, Baker provides a great contrast between how humans versus God respond. “Human anger wants death, destruction, and deliverance. Divine anger seeks justice, intercession, and discipline. Human anger seeks immediate action; divine anger seeks human repentance.”[5] Even in the destruction that awaits God’s people, God is still seeking for his people to repent and turn back to the law.

       “A matured faith trusts humbly but persistently in God’s design for establishing righteousness in the earth.”[6] Habakkuk had to trust in God’s character and nature. Habakkuk, like many believers throughout history, must “wait patiently for God to resolve the problem of injustice that the prophet had struggled with so long.”[7] Habakkuk knows the trials that are to come. It is a heavy burden to bear. However, he chooses to trust in God’s salvation even if things do not improve in his lifetime. God, the same God of his ancestors, was and is still in control.

Who do you trust? Where is your hope?

      Habakkuk is one of my favorite books in the bible. Habakkuk, like many of us with a heart of mercy who witness the sinful systems and brokenness of the world, comes boldly and honestly before God in his lament. For how long? More important than the answer God provides is the truth that God is present with his people, especially the broken-hearted and those desiring righteousness. “Habakkuk’s resolution of his problem comes when he can believe that the Lord is present with him and his people, although they may at present find themselves beset with deep problems in life.”[8]

      In my limited understanding, I still wrestle with the concept that God’s justice does not work for every individual or generation in this world.[9] I believe that it does from an eternal perspective. It isn’t easy, and I don’t believe it is meant to be. Seeking to remain sensitive to the needs and suffering of this world points us to God. “Habakkuk shows ‘that trials and perplexity were not incompatible with trust in God.”[10]

       “Habakkuk is a book for all faithful people, of whatever era, who find themselves living ‘in the meantime’ – in the time between the revelation of the promises of God and the fulfillment of those promises – in the time between their redemption, when God made his purposes clear, and the final time when the divine purpose will be realized in all the earth. As such, Habakkuk is a book from faith for faith.”[11] God’s sovereignty and presence are the comforts that Habakkuk provides. This is not always easy, especially when there is injustice right in front of us. However, the creator of the universe meets us in our lament.

          If you still have questions and are still wrestling, so am I. And I think we are meant to be. We are meant to be distraught by the injustice that we see. This sensitivity is not a curse but a gift because it motivates us to work towards making the earth as it is in heaven. It is not an easy burden, but we do not do it in our strength.

Bibliography

Andersen, Francis I., Habakkuk: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary.

New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.5040/9780300261592?

locatt=label:secondary_theologyAndReligionOnline.

Barker, Kenneth L., and D. Waylon Bailey. Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah. Nashville:

Broadman & Holman, 1998.

Goldingay, John, and Pamela J. Scalise. Minor Prophets II. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009.

Pell, Patty. “Paradigm of Justice.” Lecture, Denver Seminary, Littleton, CO, September 2024.

Pell, Patty. “Justice in the Prophets.” Lecture, Denver Seminary, Littleton, CO, October 2024.

Pell, Patty. “Internal and External Critique.” Lecture, Denver Seminary, Littleton, CO, October

2024.

Roberts, J. J. M. Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah: A Commentary. 1st ed. Louisville:

Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991.

Robertson, O. Palmer. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 2005.

[1] John Goldingay and Pamela J. Scalise, Minor Prophets II (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2009), 2.

[2] Kenneth L. Barker and D. Waylon Bailey, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1998), 5.

[3] Baker and Bailey, Micah, Nahum, 26.

[4] Ibid, 26.

[5] Kenneth L. Barker and D. Waylon Bailey, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1998), 28.

[6] O. Palmer Robertson, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 1.

[7] Robertson, The Books of Nahum, 4.

[8] Kenneth L. Barker and D. Waylon Bailey, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1998), 12.

[9] Baker and Bailey, Micah, Nahum,26

[10] Ibid, 26.

[11] Ibid, 23.