Habakkuk Teaches Us How Not To Pray for Your Country

Habakkuk threw a tantrum ^{(Hab.1: 1-4)} when he felt that God was taking too long to answer and eventually God did answer him.
But how did God answer?  He gave a very perplexing response.

“⁶ I am raising up the Babylonians
    that ruthless and impetuous people,
who sweep across the whole earth
    to seize dwellings not their own….”^{Hab. 1:6}

Now, Habakkuk must have understood immediately what this meant. It suddenly hit him that God had decided to do much more than he had anticipated in his initial prayer. Instead of just dealing with the wicked individuals in his country, God would instead raise up a cruel and wicked nation-the Babylonians. According to God, they would conquer his country. 

 

Now how is that for an answer? Ha! 

Habakkuk was not at all excited at God’s out-sized response. But was God’s response out-sized? Let us see.

The truly discerning man or woman often finds that they are burdened as much as God’s Spirit is burdened by a particular situation. In other words, a man or woman in constant fellowship with God tends to view situations the way God views them. Therefore they are rarely caught unawares by God’s answers.

However, many Kenyan Christian’s, often get involved in less useful discussions, friendships and associations that only serve to weaken their capacity to experience the real concerns God. Even as they pray, they fail like Habakkuk, to see and feel the extent of God’s distress over a particular situation. They are thus often unprepared to take up God’s answer.  

To say that Habakkuk was in a dilemma of sorts is an understatement. He must have pondered;

·        What would happen to him and his family? Would they all be killed or taken into exile? How about the country’s economy? He could lose everything he had worked for in his entire life!

·        What would happen to the right-doing individuals? Would they somehow be spared this coming catastrophe?

·        Habakkuk had probably heard of the Babylonian’s godlessness and military expansionist agenda. Maybe he had even prayed about them. Now God was saying these very same people would be His instrument to deal with the national and individual sins being perpetuated in Israel. How so?

His second conversation with God is therefore not as brash as the first one. He now entreats God; careful not to question His judgement but also laying out his case against God’s modus operandi. Of the Babylonians, he petitions;

 

Is he to keep on emptying his net,
    destroying nations without mercy? ^{Hab. 1:17}

However, despite Habakkuk’s spirited efforts and his surprise at God’s answer, there is a glaring deficiency in his prayers which we only notice when we compare his prayers to those of other prophets. Consider Daniel as he prayed for his country-men; 

I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. ³ So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.²⁰ While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill— ²¹ while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. ^{Dan 9:2-3, 20-21}

Consider also Nehemiah;

 

 “Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, ⁶ let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. ⁷ We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses. ^{Neh. 1:4-7}

In both these instances we see that both Daniel and Nehemiah recognised from the outset that they were part and parcel of their nation and thus vicariously linked to the sins of those who had no regard for God. Therefore in their petition to God, they included themselves among those that had sinned. This is something that Habakkuk does not do in his prayers at all.

For Daniel and Nehemiah, positioning themselves in such manner means that their prayers are less likely to be rash. They know that they are guilty by association. Nehemiah says, “I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you.” Daniel on the other hand records, “While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel...”

This is the way to pray for your nation. We first acknowledge our sin before we petition God about others. In doing this we recognise that in some way we have contributed to the state of things either by omission or by commission.

In the aftermath of the 2008 PEV I was one angry young man and I went to the LORD with a prayer very similar to Habakkuk’s. Upon closer self-examination however I asked myself;

·        Have you not at some point, in the depths of your heart, held resentment against your fellow brother solely on the basis of his political and tribal affiliations?

·        Were you not among those that lazily watched as the government got weakened and tensions rose post-referendum 2005?

·       Were you not among those that read and quietly took sides in hate-filled social media conversations?

From that time I realized just how deeply I was involved in the events that took place in those dark days even though I never insulted or demonstrated on the streets or mistreated anyone. I had much confession to do each time I petitioned God about my country.

And it is not an over-exaggeration to say that as nation we are gearing towards another major crisis. What are you feeding your mind on at such a time as this? Where will your heart be when the crisis matures to a social or economic breakdown?

From Daniel and Nehemiah we learn that it is from such humility that we get the best results from God. Anything else is blind posturing. The bible says;

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. ^{John 1:9-10}

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