With all the events of the world both nationally and globally, today’s reading could not have come at a more fitting time. I look at the way we receive information today through doom scrolling and all the massive information thrown at us in minutes. It is overwhelming. We need time to stop and be still. We need to be with God and listen.

The First Reading this Sunday comes from the prophet Habakkuk. He lived in the final decades of Judah, Israel’s southern kingdom. The prophet witnesses idolatry and injustice and sees the rising threat of the oppressor. Habakkuk is not like the other prophets that address God’s people in his name. Habakkuk laments to God directly as he witnesses the evil in the world and struggles to trust God. In three short chapters, we read Habakkuk’s complaint, God’s response, and the prophet’s prayer. Today’s passage is the prophet’s complaint and God’s response.

Perhaps today’s reading sheds light on the problem of evil. Do we not hear our own voice in the words of the prophet:

“How long, O LORD?  I cry for help
 but you do not listen!
 I cry out to you, “Violence!”
 but you do not intervene.
 Why do you let me see ruin;
 why must I look at misery?
 Destruction and violence are before me;
 there is strife, and clamorous discord.”

There are two ideas in God’s response: wait and trust. God’s will and his justice is not a mathematical equation. God’s presence in the world is a story that is unraveling in time and he invites us to wait and trust. The prophet is commanded to write these accounts down to emphasize that we are in the midst of a story where all things find its justice in God.

God tells the prophet not to be rash and impatient. The just person who has faith will live. Our hearts must be still to hear God’s voice, otherwise our hearts harden, running in every direction leads no where. God daily calls us to him, so let us listen together and have faith.

Have faith the size of a mustard seed. Even if your faith is the size of the smallest seed, if it is filled with immense trust, God will increase it.

Waiting on God and trusting in God that is our call this day. This waiting and trust reaches its climax in Jesus who on the cross, fully discloses love that stares evil in the face and shows the strength of goodness that tramples the head of violence, hate, and oppression. In the Cross of Christ, we find the hope that God never abandons us in our weakness. Never.