Rejoicing in Despair

by Chuck Adair on February 01, 2024

Rejoicing in Despair

Read Habakkuk 3:17-18

Today’s Truth

In this passage, you see this list of all of these things that are not going as desired. A lack of fruit. The fig tree is not blossoming. There’s no fruit on the vines. No produce from the olive trees. The fields are yielding no food. The flock is cut off from the fold. There’s no herd in the stalls. This is a picture of emptiness, despair, and barrenness. And in the middle of this, Habakkuk says, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

Discussion Question-Read Chapter 3

Where in your life are you despairing and broken? Do you have joy in the Lord? Why or why not?
What does it look like to rejoice in the Lord when you are suffering?
How has the Lord been your strength in hard times?

Life Application

In times of despair and barrenness and emptiness, we can still have joy. I will rejoice. I will take joy. Why? Because I have the Lord. I have the God of my salvation and all that he is and all that he represents, a fountain of everlasting strength when we have nothing.

Tags: habakkuk

About the Author

Chuck Adair

If you ask Chuck his favorite thing in life to do, he would tell you it is the teaching and preaching of the scriptures and to call all people to engage in the great adventure of abiding with Christ. He desires to connect people with the richness, adventure, and fullness of life that comes through Christ alone and to reach the unchurched, de-churched, dead-churched, and unmoved. Chuck is married to his best friend Kristin and has two adult children, Taylor and Linley. Kris and Chuck believe the quality of their marriage rises and falls, not on circumstances or feelings, but based on their daily abiding with Jesus (Jn 15.5).

Rejoicing in Despair