Habbakuk is one of the latest titles in the 30-Day Devotional series from Keswick Ministries. This extract is used with permission.  

Read Habakkuk 1:1–11
Key verses: Habakkuk 1:2–3

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 wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.

'How long?' 'Why?' – these are two questions we often ask.

The prophet Habakkuk was also overwhelmed by these questions. He was living in Jerusalem in the final days of the seventh century BC. Josiah, the great king who discovered the law, had pulled down the pagan altars and restored the Temple, but he had been followed by Jehoiakim, who quickly succeeded in reversing all his good work.

King Jehoiakim built his wonderful palaces, exploiting the people in the process, but showed no repentance. And so the priests, politicians and civil servants took their cue from him. They too became perpetrators of violence and injustice, adding to the moral confusion rather than resolving it (verse 3). No wonder Habakkuk declares, 'The wicked hem in the righteous' (verse 4). The few who did remain faithful to the Word of the Lord were completely surrounded by ungodly behaviour which threatened to snuff out all signs of spiritual life.

Habakkuk watched this terrible moral and spiritual decline set in. God's Word was frozen out, and the law was paralysed (verse 4). Justice was replaced with anarchy. The people were determined to forget what God had said and to live life on their own terms.

But it was not just the sinfulness of the people that brought Habakkuk close to despair, it was also the delay in God's action. It was actually Habakkuk's understanding of God that led him to voice this complaint: 'If what I know about you is true, God, then why aren't you acting? Why the delay?' There is an intensity in verses 2–4, suggesting that the prophet shouts, screams, roars, 'Help, Lord! Why are you allowing people to drift away? Why are you not intervening?'

These questions were not simply academic. Habakkuk is bewildered and is crying out to God with deeply felt pain.

As the novelist Peter de Vries puts it, 'The question mark twisted like a fish hook in the human heart' (The Blood of the Lamb, University of Chicago Press, 2005, p.243).

Are there question marks twisting 'like a fish hook' in your heart? Many of us have unresolved 'why' questions in our lives. We won't always find the answers to perplexing questions this side of eternity. When everything seems out of joint, it is OK to admit your bewilderment. But don't believe Satan's lie that God's apparent silence means he is not interested, or not working on your behalf. Like Habakkuk, lay out your complaint honestly before God. Ask him to help you trust his character and learn to live with unanswered questions and mystery.

This extract has been taken from 'Habbakuk' by Jonathan Lamb with Elizabeth McQuoid, IVP, £4.99.