Living In The Light

December 24, I Will Stand My Watch

I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected.
—Habakkuk 2:1 LL 376.1

God answered the cry of His loyal children. Through His chosen mouthpiece He revealed His determination to bring chastisement upon the nation that had turned from Him to serve the gods of the heathen. Within the lifetime of some who were even then making inquiry regarding the future, He would miraculously shape the affairs of the ruling nations of earth and bring the Babylonians into the ascendancy. These Chaldeans, “terrible and dreadful,” were to fall suddenly upon the land of Judah as a divinely appointed scourge (verse 7). The princes ofJudah and the fairest of the people were to be carried captive to Babylon; the Judean cities and villages and the cultivated fields were to be laid waste; nothing was to be spared. LL 376.2

Confident that even in this terrible judgment the purpose of God for His people would in some way be fulfilled, Habakkuk bowed in submission to the revealed will ofJehovah. “Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?” he exclaimed. And then, his faith reaching out beyond the forbidding prospect of the immediate future, and laying fast hold on the precious promises that reveal God’s love for His trusting children, the prophet added, “We shall not die” (verse 12). With this declaration of faith he rested his case, and that of every believing Israelite, in the hands of a compassionate God. LL 376.3

This was not Habakkuk’s only experience in the exercise of strong faith. On one occasion, when meditating concerning the future, he said, “I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what He will say unto me.” Graciously the Lord answered him: “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:1-4). LL 376.4

The faith that strengthened Habakkuk and all the holy and the just in those days of deep trial was the same faith that sustains God’s people today. In the darkest hours, under circumstances the most forbidding, the Christian believer may keep his soul stayed upon the source of all light and power.—Prophets and Kings, pp. 385—387. LL 376.5

Further Reflection: : Whatever your difficulty, entrust it to your compassionate God. LL 376.6