Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! – Habakkuk 3:17-18
Habakkuk paints a very hard picture for us. The fig tree has no blossoms, the vines carry no grapes, the olive crop fails… the fields are barren, the flocks are gone, and the barns stand empty. In the world Habakkuk lived in, that meant more than inconvenience! It meant survival was in question. Everything a person normally depended on had disappeared. And yet the prophet says something remarkable:
“Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.”
When I read those words, I can’t help but ask the question that sits quietly underneath them: Would I still say that if those things were true of my own life?
And it presses the same question upon all of us. What becomes of our faith when the things we long for don’t come to pass? When healing doesn’t come? When a broken home isn’t restored? When the goals in life that we’ve worked so hard toward remain unrealized?
Sooner or later, every Christ follower faces these questions. They’re certainly not theoretical.
Sometimes, if we’re honest, we discover that our hearts have begun to treat Christianity as if it were a system of benefits. As long as the Lord seems to be helping our lives move in the direction we want – the comforts, desires, and answers we seek -we feel pretty eager to follow Him. But when those things begin to fall away, our enthusiasm can easily fade away with them if we’re not careful. And when that happens, it reveals something wrong about us:
We may be more attached to what God gives than to God Himself.
Jesus spoke very plainly about what it means to follow Him. The path of discipleship isn’t easy. We surrender our lives, which includes our claims, our expectations, and especially our sense of what we believe God owes us. Jesus doesn’t call us to a superficial, fair-weather faith – He calls us to something much deeper.
And when a person truly sets their heart on that path, they begin to understand something really important. Our righteousness doesn’t place God in our debt, nor does our obedience earn us a reward. Even if faithful living seems to gain us nothing in this life, the Lord is still worthy of that faithfulness!
He is a righteous God, and He’s created us with the ability to reflect His character. And it’s in learning to walk in His ways that we begin to know Him more deeply. That relationship with Him – that nearness to Him – is the greatest joy a human soul can have!
The true end of righteousness is not reward from God, but fellowship with God.
This is the difficult lesson that the Book of Job presses upon us so powerfully. When so much of Job’s life was stripped away, the great question underneath it all was this: Would Job still honor the Lord simply because the Lord is worthy?
It’s a lesson that believers have needed in every generation, and we still need that lesson today.
I believe this is the kind of faith the Lord patiently works to grow in us as His people – a faith that rests not in what His hand provides, but ultimately in who He is. When our joy is anchored there, even in the barren seasons of life we can still say, with quiet confidence and a full heart, “I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.”
Former Blackout Artist 