Bible Journaling  | Habakkuk 

Recently I read through Habakkuk and it really stood out to me and encouraged me. I love this book. I thought it would be fun to share some of what I wrote while journaling through Habakkuk. When I read the Bible I write in the margins and any blank place on the page. I like keeping my thoughts all together with the Bible so I can reflect on what I’ve learned and where. I also like to jot down any questions I have to ask my parents or just to keep in mind as I continue reading. More often than not when I have a question about the Bible I just have to keep reading and the answer appears. It’s all in the Bible! 

“Just keep reading, just keep reading.” *in the tune of Just Keep Swimming from Finding Nemo* 

On chapter one 

(In this chapter Habakkuk is complaining and telling his worries and struggles to God. God answers Habakkuk and his worries) 

Take your worries and complaints to God. Be truthful and open with Him. He already knows our hearts and what worries us. There is no reason to hide it from Him. Share your thoughts and what bothers you. Be open and speak to God. Have it out in the open. When you do—when you can acknowledge what you feel to Him and yourself—God can speak and address you. He can answer and help deal with your problems. He can tell you directly what is happening or just to wait and put your trust in Him. He can help you and lead you into understanding. You need to ask Him. If you never ask then why would He answer? He still can—definitely He can, there is nothing He can’t do—but I think He likes to have a relationship with us and that means us talking and going to Him for help and not just being stubborn in heart or pretending what bothers us doesn’t exist. Be truthful. Tell God what worries you. Tell God what lays heavy on your heart and mind. Tell God your struggles. He is not afraid of human struggles or fears or worries or our problems. If anything He knows better than we do. Jesus himself became a man, fully human and fully God. While he was human he had worries and struggles even up to the cross where in the garden he sweated blood. Do you know how overwhelmed with extreme fear and stress you would have to feel to actually sweat blood? Jesus knows. He went through it. Who better to go to with our worries than him? 

On chapter two

(In this part God tells of how the righteous will live by their faith, woes to those who come against the Lord, how the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God and what profit is an idol?) 

For the earth will be filled

with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD

as the waters cover the sea.

—Habakkuk 2:14 

I love this! <3 

What profit is an idol

when its maker has shaped it,

a metal image, a teacher of lies?

For its maker trusts in his own creation

when he makes speechless idols!

Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake;

to a silent stone, Arise!

Can this teach?

Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,

and there is no breath at all in it.

 But the LORD is in his holy temple;

let all the earth keep silence before him.

—Habakkuk 2:18-20

There is no power in idols—these things that are made from human hands and what is inanimate. They are nothing. God is everything. He makes everything. 

On chapter three

Though the fig tree should not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the LORD;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

GOD, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer’s;

he makes me tread on my high places.

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.

—Habakkuk 3:17-19

Praise God even in hard seasons. A pastor once said how our rejoicing in God and praising Him during suffering is an offering of worship we can only give to God when we are here on earth. When in eternity (heaven) and praising God there, there will be no sickness or death or pain or suffering. Only on earth do we face these things. Only on earth do we have the ability to praise God despite what we feel and in the storm of life and all the pain and suffering that comes with it. Only here can we give God this kind of praise. 

“…yet I will rejoice in the LORD.” 

Praise Him in the struggle. Praise Him before the breakthrough comes. Praise Him for He is God. Praise Him for He is our strength and salvation. Praise Him for He is good.