What Do You Do When the World Seems More Broken than You Thought It Was?
A message from Habakkuk 2:5–20
Hobbits.
They’re one of the people-groups that populates Middle-Earth in The Lord of the Rings. They’re quite short, so I feel a special connection with them. They reside in a rustic nook of Middle-Earth known as “the Shire,” where it’s so calm that the hobbits have forgotten that the wider world is filled with evil and darkness. Here’s how the author of The Lord of the Rings J.R.R. Tolkien describes the hobbits of the Shire near the beginning of this saga:
“There in that pleasant corner of the world they… heeded less and less the world outside where dark things moved, until they came to think that peace and plenty were the rule… and the right of all sensible folk.”
The hobbits have come to expect that “peace and plenty” ought to be the “rule… and the right” of folk like themselves. In this, they seem like Americans—very short Americans, but Americans nonetheless.1
But then comes the One Ring and a quest and war and death. Suddenly, the hobbits are faced with a question: What do you do when you recognize the world is more broken than you thought it was?
I think part of the reason why this story captures our imaginations is because this is a question each of us faces at some point. None of us has real-life experiences with magic rings or hobbits or Nazgûl. And yet, at some point, most of us have been forced to recognize that not everything in the world is “peace and plenty.” At some point, we see the evil and injustice in our world, and we’re forced to face the same question as the hobbits: What do I do when I recognize the world is more broken than I thought?
When was that for you?
Perhaps it was the first time death ripped away someone you loved—and you knew for the first time that life is fragile.
Or what about the first time you heard someone use a vulgar word to describe your ethnicity—and the reality of racism became real for you.
Maybe it was the first time you found yourself simply living with a sadness that won’t seem to go away—and you saw how hard it’s going to be just to keep going.
For some of you, this brokenness became part of your life before you even learned to speak, and it still grabs hold of your body in the form of anxiety and fear. There are dark corners in all of our hearts, where we just can’t bear to look—because that’s where we see the awful brokenness and injustice of our world. “I know a grief people don’t speak about,” Lecrae says, “a fire that flickers then burns up the house”—what is that grief you don’t speak about?
What do you do when you recognize the world is more broken than you thought it was?
At one point in the final volume of The Lord of the Rings, one of the hobbits whose life has been so sheltered glimpses the awful power of the evil in his world. He finds himself lying on a battlefield with death and destruction and defeat all around him. Here’s how J.R.R. Tolkien described his reaction in that moment:
“Such a horror was on him that he was blind and sick.”
Have you ever been there? Have you ever been so overwhelmed by the brokenness of a circumstance you’re facing that you can’t seem to see straight and your stomach is clenched to the point of sickness? In those moments when human beings are dehumanized, when children die senselessly, when the name of Jesus is invoked and exploited to push political agendas—have you ever felt blind and sick and helpless?
If so, you’re in good company, because I think that’s what Habakkuk is experiencing in this text. Habakkuk has seen injustice all around him in Judah, and he does the right thing. He cries out to God, and he’s confident God will bring justice. God answers by declaring he will bring justice—but God says he will bring justice to Judah by allowing Babylon to conquer Judah. God does say that he will judge Babylon too—but he still doesn’t tell Habakkuk when or how. And so, Habakkuk climbs up into a tower and declares, “I will stand at my watch… I will look to see what [the LORD] will say to me” (Habakkuk 2:1–2). Now, here is Habakkuk, standing on his watchtower, and the world is more broken than he had expected.
So what should we do when we recognize the world is more broken than we thought?
God doesn’t provide Habakkuk with an immediate answer or a timetable, but God does give a word that shows Habakkuk—and us—how to live in such times. This word wasn’t easy for Habakkuk, and it won’t be easy for us, because it doesn’t provide every answer we want or a timetable when God will act. But it’s God’s word, and it is enough for the moment in which we find ourselves. When you recognize that the world is more broken than you thought, be patient, be honest, and be still.
Be patient—injustice has an expiration date.
Be honest—the greed that drives injustice isn’t only in your enemies.
Be still—your God has not forgotten.
1. Be Patient—Injustice Has an Expiration Date (Habakkuk 2:5–6)
When Habakkuk writes these words, Babylon seems to possess all the power in the world. According to God’s own words to Habakkuk, the Babylonians
“open their throats as wide as Sheol”—Sheol is a Hebrew word שְׁאוֹל that refers to the grave or to the underworld—“like death they never have enough. They gather all nations for themselves, and collect all peoples as their own.” (Habakkuk 2:5)
When I think of this image of death moving through the nations, I think of the supervillain in the movie Thunderbolts* who begins as “Bob” but then becomes “the Void,” and how his power becomes a dark shadow that creeps across New York City and erases everyone it touches. That’s the Babylonians during this moment in history, a creeping death that expands across the Ancient Near East and erases civilization after civilization—and Habakkuk wonders if it will ever end. That’s why Habakkuk says earlier, “Will [Babylon] keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?” (Habakkuk 1:17). Will this ever end?
Here is God’s reply: “Soon their captives will taunt them… with mocking riddles” (Habakkuk 2:6). What is God declaring to Habakkuk through these words? There is a day coming when Babylon’s power will fall and people will mock Babylon’s memory. Or, to put it another way, injustice has an expiration date.
