Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer captures the heart of Habakkuk's faith, and it is encouraging to see you turning to the Lord in a dry season. When the fig tree does not bud and the fields produce no food, when there is nothing in the pen or the stall, the prophet still chose to rejoice in the Lord and to take joy in God his Savior. That is the strength you are asking for, and it is the right request.
Life in this world will often feel like a barren field. Scripture shows us a man who knew that emptiness well. He lost everything and could not see the reason for his suffering. His way was hidden and he could not understand what God was doing. Yet he did not curse God or bring a foolish charge against Him. He was honest about his pain, even cursing the day of his birth, but he kept his integrity and kept trusting. God allowed that early story to be recorded so that those who come after would have an example that it is possible to keep trusting even while groping for answers. Do not judge your story in the middle. Wait to see what God will do in the end, for He does not pervert justice and His judgments are holy and true.
Part of that trust is remembering who God is and who you are to Him. What is man that God should be mindful of him, that He should magnify him and set His heart upon him and visit him every morning. Yet He does. Your very breath is in His hand. You do not have to think to breathe, God keeps that in His own control, and He holds your life with the same care. He has placed a glorious treasure in these earthen vessels, these ordinary clay pots, so that the glory will go to Him and not to us. Your joy does not have to rise and fall with the harvest or with what you possess, because your life is anchored in Him.
The intellect can only take you so far. You cannot find God by searching Him out in material things alone, because God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. There comes a point where you must take a step of faith beyond what you can figure out. Faith is what Abraham showed when he believed the promise of the Messiah, and God counted that faith to him as righteousness. In the same way, when you put your trust in Jesus Christ, God counts your faith for righteousness. You become a child of promise through faith, not through your own effort. Having begun in the Spirit by trusting Jesus, you continue by that same faith.
Jesus is the answer to that barrenness you described. He is the Word who was with God and was God, who humbled Himself and came in the likeness of man, tempted in every way as we are so that He can help us in our hour of need. Where man could never build a bridge to God, God built the bridge to man in Christ. He is the Bread of Heaven and the Word of Life, and He provides for the deepest needs that circumstances cannot meet. To be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith, is greater provision than any full barn.
So commit your way to the Lord and rest in Him. Seek Him, do not despise His correcting and shaping hand, for happy is the one whom God corrects. He will deliver in trouble after trouble and keep you. He knows the truth about you, He keeps the books, and He loves you. Even when answers are slow and the path is unclear, you can say with the prophet, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. Your strength, your provider, and the anchor of your soul is not changing circumstances but the Savior Himself, and He will not fail you.
May the Lord remind you daily that He loves you, that your life is in His hands, and that He is working according to His wisdom and love to do what is best for you. May He fill you with joy in God your Savior, not because the field is full, but because Christ is yours. In Jesus' name.
Life in this world will often feel like a barren field. Scripture shows us a man who knew that emptiness well. He lost everything and could not see the reason for his suffering. His way was hidden and he could not understand what God was doing. Yet he did not curse God or bring a foolish charge against Him. He was honest about his pain, even cursing the day of his birth, but he kept his integrity and kept trusting. God allowed that early story to be recorded so that those who come after would have an example that it is possible to keep trusting even while groping for answers. Do not judge your story in the middle. Wait to see what God will do in the end, for He does not pervert justice and His judgments are holy and true.
Part of that trust is remembering who God is and who you are to Him. What is man that God should be mindful of him, that He should magnify him and set His heart upon him and visit him every morning. Yet He does. Your very breath is in His hand. You do not have to think to breathe, God keeps that in His own control, and He holds your life with the same care. He has placed a glorious treasure in these earthen vessels, these ordinary clay pots, so that the glory will go to Him and not to us. Your joy does not have to rise and fall with the harvest or with what you possess, because your life is anchored in Him.
The intellect can only take you so far. You cannot find God by searching Him out in material things alone, because God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. There comes a point where you must take a step of faith beyond what you can figure out. Faith is what Abraham showed when he believed the promise of the Messiah, and God counted that faith to him as righteousness. In the same way, when you put your trust in Jesus Christ, God counts your faith for righteousness. You become a child of promise through faith, not through your own effort. Having begun in the Spirit by trusting Jesus, you continue by that same faith.
Jesus is the answer to that barrenness you described. He is the Word who was with God and was God, who humbled Himself and came in the likeness of man, tempted in every way as we are so that He can help us in our hour of need. Where man could never build a bridge to God, God built the bridge to man in Christ. He is the Bread of Heaven and the Word of Life, and He provides for the deepest needs that circumstances cannot meet. To be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith, is greater provision than any full barn.
So commit your way to the Lord and rest in Him. Seek Him, do not despise His correcting and shaping hand, for happy is the one whom God corrects. He will deliver in trouble after trouble and keep you. He knows the truth about you, He keeps the books, and He loves you. Even when answers are slow and the path is unclear, you can say with the prophet, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. Your strength, your provider, and the anchor of your soul is not changing circumstances but the Savior Himself, and He will not fail you.
May the Lord remind you daily that He loves you, that your life is in His hands, and that He is working according to His wisdom and love to do what is best for you. May He fill you with joy in God your Savior, not because the field is full, but because Christ is yours. In Jesus' name.
