The Mystery of Presence

If we are honest, there are days, even months or years, when we cry out to the Lord and he doesn’t seem to pay much attention. It’s most difficult when we ask for things like the end of violence, or for truth and justice to prevail over lies and oppression. If you’ve ever wondered why God doesn’t seem to hear or be present in the midst of suffering, then you might understand Habakkuk’s struggle.

His prophetic words open with a plea something along the lines of, “Where are you, and why don’t you do something?” I've asked similar questions. It’s an honest cry from a grieving person. The God who promised to dwell with Israel seemed absent to Habakkuk in difficult times.

God did have a dwelling place, the temple, like the nations around them. But it was quite unlike the shrines and high places of those other nations. Those temples housed visible idols made of wood and stone. But in the center of Israel’s temple was a mysterious place called the Holy of Holies where God was to meet with them. Thick curtains partitioned off a small room so that no light entered. There, in the dark, rested a box called the ark of the covenant. On top of the ark was the mercy seat, shadowed by the gilded wings of strange angelic forms called cherubim.

And on this mercy seat? Nothing.

There was no form, no mouth or eyes or ears or hands or feet. Israel worshiped an imageless God. To the eyes of the idolatrous nations around Israel, the mercy seat was just an empty throne. The nations around Israel built their idols and put them on display, but Israel shrouded her God in secret.

The nations around them may have seen this dark, empty place and assumed God’s absence. However, mystery does not mean absence. At the dedication of this temple, where God was said to “dwell,” Solomon declared, “The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness...Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built?” (1 KIngs 8:12, 27). Similarly, in Psalm 115, when the nations asked the people of Israel, “Where is your god?” their response was, “Our God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases.” The Holy of Holies merely represented the heavenly throne. It did not contain God, but signified that the God of all creation had a special relationship with Israel.

When Habakkuk declared, “But the Lord is in His holy temple,” he directed the watching world’s eyes to a mystery.

The Jews knew that God’s rule was not limited to Israel. But they also knew that this God in the heavens “who does all that he pleases” had promised to be with them as their help and shield. The great mystery is that this God, who rules over all creation, is uniquely present with his people.

God is present, but he is not contained.

Habakkuk is not in a good place, in his circumstances or in his heart. Facing the imminent destruction of his unfaithful people, he wants to know why this “present” God would act this way. He makes his complaint, then declares that he will wait for the Lord’s response to which he intends to make another argument. In response, God declares that the enemies who would destroy Israel would also be destroyed. Then at the end of God’s answer, Habakkuk declares, “But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.” The only appropriate response God allows Habakkuk is silence.

He had to wrestle with the fact that there is no other hope but this God who is in the heavens and does all he pleases. Turning to the visible idols of the nations would profit him nothing because “there is no breath in them.” All he can do is wait “quietly for the day of distress.” Yet he pleads with God, “In wrath, remember mercy.” His final words in chapter 3 are not an argument but a hopeful resolve, that even when all hope on earth is destroyed, he will worship no one other than the imageless God, shrouded in mystery.

Like Habakkuk, we often find it difficult to make sense of our experiences. Our struggles and pain can be overwhelming, leading us to cry out, “Where are you? Why don’t you do something?” When God seems absent or he does not answer the way we want, we may be tempted to turn to other things for hope. It’s difficult to turn our eyes toward a God shrouded in darkness, whose presence is mysterious and uncontained. Do we reject the mystery of his presence in order to seek the more tangible pleasures of money, power, food, drink, relationships, and the many other very physical ‘’gods” that hold out empty promises?

In these difficult moments, Habakkuk calls us to remember that “the Lord is in his holy temple” and know that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of his glory.” In other words, He is ruling all things, and He won’t always remain obscure. He is present with and works on behalf of those who continually hope in him. We may have to wait quietly in grief for answers we may not like, but even in these hard places we can say, “GOD, the Lord, is our strength.”

God hears us when we cry, just like he heard Habakkuk. So hold fast to his promises knowing that God holds fast to those who belong to him. Soon enough, He will show himself faithful on behalf of those who wait for him.