In his book Rumors of God: Experience the Kind of Faith You´ve Only Heard About, authors Jon Tyson & Darren Whitehead depictsthe rising hope of the prophet Habakkuk in the midst of despair.
The prophet Habakkuk lived in a time when the future of God’s people was also hanging in the balance. There was prevalent sin and judgment within God’s people, a growing ungodly world power and uncertainty with God’s rule. The prophet captured the why of his generation when he prayed:
Lord, I have heard of your fame;
Habakkuk 3:2
I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord.
Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.
Habakkuk passionately verbalized the anguish of his time. He had heard rumors of God’s fame, caught rumblings of God’s deeds, but would not stop until he experienced the reality of the transcendent power of God in his life. Habakkuk started to cry out for something he had never seen. The cry of his heart was to see an awakening of the fame and deeds of God—in his day, in his time, in his generation.
May we echo the prayer of Habakkuk and see the church rise up in our day and in our time. We are convinced that God has something fresh that he wants to do, and we know that God rewards those who earnestly seek him. We want to experience the kind of faith we’ve only read about and heard about.