Habakkuk

As I have previously stated in my critique of the book of Job, many Christians feel ashamed and shrink back at the notion of even questioning God.  However, the book of Habakkuk is an eye-opener for all those who dare say that we should not question God in any way.  While we can often take our questions to the extreme, one of the most beautiful things about Christianity is that we can question God about matters.  We serve a very personal God who is both immanent and transcendant over the earth.  Habakkuk asks God how he can let Judah go unpunished for their sin.  God answers Habakkuk by saying that he will punish Judah in due time.  he reveals to the prophet that he is soon going to have the nation of Judah fall captive to the Babylonian Captivity. .  God tells him that  all the earth will be filled with the knowledge and the glory of the Lord, and that he will not be trampled upon by his creation.  After receiving the answer to the question of judgment, habakkuk prays that God will once again show his majesty to the people of Judah.  One significant portion of the book is the fact that the fig tree does not bud.  The fig tree is commonly spoken of in order to refer to the nation of Israel.  The fig tree did not bud because the Israelites received the seeds of other gods into their lives and the weeds choked out the roots of the fig tree.  Habakkuk can be applied to us because as Christians we are grafted into the branch(which in Romans 11 is referring to the Menorah.)  We need ask ourselves the daily question of whether or not we are helping the fig tree to bud.  Habakkuk can also be applied in the sense of our questions to God about how people succeed in life and it seems like God lets the wicked have everything.  We can be assured based on the promise of Habakkuk taht if those people do not repent of their actions, then God will pour out his judgment upon them in due time.  But first he will always extend compassion to them.  We also need to apply the fact of Judah once again which is the remnant God preserved up unto the time of the Babylonian Captivity in 586 BC.  He has also prserved Christians as a remnant.  ask yourself the question of whether or not you are letting weeds choke out your roots and asks once again are you making the fig tree blossom.