Habakkuk: A Word For Today?

During sixteen years as a missionary in Zimbabwe, I became a Zimbabwean at heart. After leaving Zimbabwe and moving to Moçambique, I continued to follow events in my adopted heartland and mourn the devastation being wrought upon the land and people by unscrupulous leaders who set no limits upon the means they use to maintain and increase their power. Since returning to the U.S.A., I have discovered that I can listen on the internet to a radio station, SW Radio Africa, which broadcasts daily news to and about Zimbabwe. It is run by exiles seeking to inform their people the truth of what is going on in their country. The government has been very successful in controlling the news accessible by the majority of the people. Those who try to speak out from inside the country are silenced by being prosecuted under draconian laws, tortured or killed. These exiles also seek to provide messages of hope for an oppressed people.

I heard an exiled pastor offering a biblical word to the people of Zimbabwe on SW Radio Africa. He read this passage from Habakkuk:

How long, O LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, "Violence!"
but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.
(Habakkuk 1:2-4 NIV)

These words echo the cries of the people of Zimbabwe. Where is God in the midst of violence, injustice, destruction, strife, conflict and lawlessness?

Daily youths trained by the ruling party in Zimbabwe beat, rape and kill those accused of supporting the opposition. AIDS is not just a disease, it is a political weapon. Workers are evicted from their homes and jobs as politicians send thugs to invade commercial farms. Violence abounds.

Millions of people in Zimbabwe are starving. Starving because farms are no longer producing food. Farms are no longer producing food because the farmers and workers have been driven off the land and political leaders have taken the farms and allowed them to fall into neglect. "Landless blacks" have been given land of white farmers, but they have returned to the city because they have neither the desire to farm nor the skills and resources needed for intensive farming. Real black farmers remain landless unless they have the right political connections. A land that once fed its neighbors can no longer feed itself. Yet the leaders get fatter and fatter. "Destruction and violence are before me."

Injustice abounds. The government and ruling party ignore laws they don’t like. High Court judges have fled from the country in order to save their lives after ruling against government violations of the constitution. The police refuse to aid victims of political violence. When victims report crimes to the police, they are arrested for creating a public disturbance while their attackers dance in the streets. "Justice is perverted."

Those who oppose the current rulers are helpless because they strive to remain law abiding and refuse to return violent act for violent act. The just man suffers for being just while the unjust is rewarded as a result of his unjust acts.

And so the people of Zimbabwe pray the words of Habakkuk:

How long, O LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, "Violence!"
but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?

Throughout 2002 and 2003 I felt that I was living in stereo. On one channel I was bombarded with the acts of Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe Africa Nationalist Union - Popular Front) destroying my adopted home. On the other channel I was buffeted by the actions of the leaders of the International Mission Board and the Southern Baptist Convention, my spiritual home. Daily I reflected upon the parallels between the actions of Mugabe and the leaders of the IMB and SBC.

It is now 2007 and I’ve been re-adjusting to life in the USA for about three and one-half years. Now I feel as if I’m living in surround sound. The current Bush administration displays this same hunger for power and disdain for those who question his actions. George Orwell’s 1984 is coming to life. And I’m left with the words of Habakkuk:

Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.

All I can do now is pray Habakkuk's prayer, also:

LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.
(Habakkuk 3:2 NIV)