How Is It That You Have No Faith? | The Righteous Shall Live By Faith
Faith can be easy to associate with moments when we desperately need God. We need faith when the diagnosis comes, when the relationship is falling apart, when the numbers do not add up, or when the situation in front of us feels impossible. When we have exhausted our own answers and cannot see a way forward, turning to God can almost feel natural. We know we cannot fix it, control it, or figure it out, so we recognize our need to trust Him.
But what about the rest of our lives? What about Monday morning when nothing particularly dramatic is happening? What about the decisions we already know how to make, the responsibilities we have handled a hundred times before, or the areas where years of experience have taught us what to do? Those ordinary places may actually reveal something important about our understanding of faith, because Scripture does not simply call us to have moments of faith. It tells us that “the just shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4).
Faith was never intended to be something we visit when we need it. It is meant to become the way we live.
When God’s Answer Doesn’t Make Sense
Those familiar words from Habakkuk 2:4 come from a story filled with uncertainty. Habakkuk looked at the nation of Judah and saw violence, injustice, corruption, and wickedness among God’s own people. Eventually he cried out, “O LORD, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2, NKJV). He could see everything that was wrong, but he could not understand why God seemed to be allowing it to continue.
It is not difficult to understand his frustration. We can look around our own world and ask similar questions. We see violence and injustice. We watch people become increasingly hostile toward one another. We see things happen that seem completely contrary to the character and purposes of God. We can even look at circumstances within our own lives and wonder why God has not intervened. Eventually the question rises inside of us: God, are You going to do something?
God answered Habakkuk, but His answer was not what Habakkuk expected. God told him that He was raising up the Babylonians. That was a problem because Babylon was not better than Judah. They were cruel, violent, arrogant, and powerful. Habakkuk had asked God to address wickedness, and God responded by telling him that an even more violent nation was coming.
Sometimes waiting for God to answer is difficult, but there are moments when receiving an answer we do not understand can be even harder. We pray for God to move, but somewhere along the way we begin imagining what His faithfulness should look like. If God is faithful, this door should open. If God heard me, this situation should improve. If God is moving, surely the outcome should look something like what I have imagined.
And sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the door closes. Sometimes the situation becomes harder. Sometimes what God allows looks nothing like what we imagined His faithfulness would look like. That is when faith has to answer a much harder question: Do I trust God only when His activity makes sense to me?
Habakkuk does not pretend to understand what God is doing. Instead, he reminds God of what he knows about Him. God is eternal. God is holy. God is his Rock. Then Habakkuk essentially asks, if that is who You are, how does what I am seeing make sense? There is something freeing about his response because biblical faith does not require us to pretend we understand things we do not understand. Habakkuk brings his questions, confusion, and fears directly to God.
Then he does something incredibly important. Habakkuk says, “I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me” (Habakkuk 2:1, NKJV). Before he decides what everything around him means, he waits to hear from God.
That matters in a world that has trained us to react immediately. Something happens, so we respond. Something angers us, so we post. Something confuses us, so we begin filling in the blanks. We can do the same thing with God. Maybe God does not care. Maybe He is not listening. Maybe He is not doing anything. Maybe I misunderstood Him. Maybe He is not as faithful as I thought.
Habakkuk refuses to allow what he does not understand to become his revelation of who God is. He has questions and fears, and he does not understand what God is doing, but before he constructs conclusions about God from what he sees, he positions himself to hear from God. That is an important distinction because faith is not the absence of questions or fear. Biblical faith is responding to what God has revealed about Himself even while questions remain.
Two Ways to Live
It is in the middle of this tension that God tells Habakkuk, “Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4, NKJV). The contrast within that statement matters. Babylon trusted in itself. Its military strength, power, resources, and ability to conquer had become the foundation upon which it stood. Habakkuk 1:11 describes them as those “whose god is their power.” God shows Habakkuk that there is another way to live. Rather than placing the weight of their lives upon themselves, the righteous live by faith.
It would be easy for those of us who follow Jesus to read that contrast and immediately place ourselves on Habakkuk’s side. We believe in Jesus. We go to church. We have not rejected God. Surely we are not like Babylon. But self-reliance is often much more subtle than outright rejection of God.
Sometimes we simply get good at things. We have been married long enough that we think we know how marriage works. We have parented long enough that we know how to raise our children. We have worked in our career long enough that we know how to do the job. We have managed money long enough to have a system. We have served in ministry long enough to know how to lead. We have followed Jesus long enough to know our Bible and recognize His voice. None of those things are inherently wrong. In fact, many of them may be evidence of growth that God Himself has produced in us.
The danger is that the things God develops in us can eventually become the things we depend on instead of God. Yesterday’s growth can become today’s substitute for dependence. We may never consciously say that we no longer need God, but the way we live can begin saying it for us. How much do we pray about the things we already know how to do? How quickly do we seek God when we think we already know the answer? Do we turn to Him first, or only after our reasoning, resources, and abilities have failed?
If I only need God when my strength runs out, then for much of my life I may still be living by my own strength. That is why there is no point in Christian maturity where we graduate from dependence upon God. If what we call maturity makes us less dependent upon Him, it is not biblical maturity. Jesus Himself said that “the Son can do nothing of Himself” (John 5:19, NKJV). That was not weakness. It was complete dependence upon the Father.
We cannot allow what God has placed in our hands to replace the God who placed it there. Experience cannot replace dependence. Wisdom cannot replace dependence. Resources and gifting cannot replace dependence. Even yesterday’s revelation cannot become a substitute for today’s relationship with God. The righteous live differently. Their lives are ordered around what God has revealed because they trust the God who revealed it.
Seeing Something Bigger Than Babylon
From Habakkuk’s perspective, Babylon looked enormous. It was powerful, violent, expanding, and seemingly unstoppable. Yet throughout Habakkuk 2, God begins showing the prophet that Babylon is not nearly as permanent as it appears. What Babylon accumulated would not last. What it built through injustice would not last. Its violence would not last, and its idols would not save it. Everything that looked so permanent to Habakkuk was temporary from God’s perspective.
Then God says, “For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14, NKJV). Habakkuk was looking at Babylon, but God was showing him where history was actually going. Babylon was not going to get the final word. Violence was not going to get the final word. Injustice was not going to get the final word. God would.
We can easily find ourselves in the same place as Habakkuk. Something can become so large in our lives that it fills our entire field of vision. It may be a diagnosis, a relationship, a financial problem, a child who is far from God, or something happening in our community or world. Whatever our “Babylon” is, it can begin to feel like the biggest reality in existence.
Faith does not require us to pretend those things are small or insignificant. Habakkuk certainly did not. But faith refuses to allow what we see to become bigger than our vision of the God who has revealed Himself to us. Habakkuk 2 ends by saying, “But the LORD is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him” (verse 20, NKJV). After all the arguing, violence, injustice, questions, armies, and boasting, God is still on His throne. He never left.
Something then begins to change in Habakkuk. His circumstances have not changed. Babylon is still coming. Yet chapter 3 no longer begins with everything that is wrong around him. It begins with God. Habakkuk starts remembering who God is and what God has done. He remembers God’s glory, power, faithfulness, and history of saving His people.
Babylon has not gotten smaller, but Habakkuk’s vision of God has gotten bigger.
By the end of the book, Habakkuk still knows what may be coming. He is not pretending that he is fearless. He describes his body trembling, his lips quivering, and his legs shaking beneath him. Yet he can still say that even if the fig tree does not blossom, there is no fruit on the vines, the fields produce no food, and the stalls are empty, “Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength” (Habakkuk 3:18–19, NKJV).
Earlier, Babylon's strength had become its god. Now Habakkuk declares that God is his strength. Those are the two ways of living that have been before us all along.
Where Have You Placed the Weight of Your Life?
Maybe you have a Babylon in front of you right now. You have prayed for healing, but your health has gotten worse. You have prayed for restoration, but the relationship has become more fractured. You have asked God for provision, but the numbers have become tighter. You have prayed for your child, but they seem to be moving farther away. You asked God to move, and what happened next looks nothing like the answer you imagined.
Habakkuk shows us that we are allowed to have questions in those places. We can bring our confusion to God. We can acknowledge that we do not understand what He is doing. But what we presently see does not get to redefine who God has already revealed Himself to be. Babylon may still be coming and the fig tree may still not blossom, but neither Babylon nor our fear gets to order our lives.
For others, the struggle may be almost the opposite. There may not be an impossible situation in front of you at all. Perhaps you have followed Jesus for years. You have grown, matured, gained experience, and watched God develop wisdom and gifting in you. Yet somewhere along the way, without ever consciously rejecting Him, you began relying more upon what God developed in you than upon God Himself.
The invitation in both places is the same: come back to a life lived by faith.
Faith does not mean abandoning responsibility and expecting God to do everything for us. It puts responsibility in its proper place. We faithfully do what God has placed in our hands while entrusting to Him what belongs in His. We do not have to control the outcomes that belong to God, but neither do we neglect what He has given us to do. Our responsibility is no longer about protecting our own kingdom or producing the outcomes we want. Our responsibility becomes faithfully serving God with whatever He has placed in our hands.
Throughout this series, we have returned again and again to the reality that biblical faith involves entrusting ourselves to God in response to who He has revealed Himself to be. That cannot remain something reserved for extraordinary moments. Everything we are, everything we have, everything God has placed in our hands, everything we understand, and everything we do not understand can be entrusted to Him.
God has given us reason to trust Him. He has revealed Himself through His Word. He has given Himself to us through His Son. He has given us the Holy Spirit to lead us into truth. So whether there is an enormous Babylon standing in front of us or the Holy Spirit is revealing ways we have slowly begun depending upon our own strength, the invitation is the same. We are called back to a life lived by faith, not simply a life containing moments of faith.
Perhaps, then, the best question to carry with us at the end of this entire journey is not simply, “Do I have faith?” It is, “Where have I placed the weight of my life?” Babylon placed its weight upon itself. Habakkuk placed the weight of his life upon God. And Scripture reminds us that the righteous are not called to move from one moment of faith to another. The righteous shall live by faith.