4. Habakkuk 1:4 The Embrace Of Faith part 4 

 Pressure Creates Prayer v.1-17

     The Disregard Of God v.3

     The Defiance Of God’s Law v. 4 

No Standards                       Therefore the law is slacked, 

Just by way of review this feeling of unanswered prayer although it constantly collide in our emotions we need to encourage ourselves in the Lord and His listening ear.

Hab. 1:2 O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! Even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!

When our heart feels this load, this pressure of affliction and ache over our and others needs, we need to carry all the bondage and struggles to the Lord.  We have to do what the prophet did and take the problem and the burden to our only true burden bearer.  Jesus invites us to come:

Matthew 11:28 (Phillips NT) Come to me, all of you who are weary and over-burdened, and I will give you rest! Put on my yoke and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 

Prayer is the place where problems are put on the only one who has a solution for every pressure and issue. Prayer is sharing the unexplainable as we exchange our perplexing heartaches and stresses both for others and ourselves, lifting them out of our incapable hands into the hands of one who is sovereign in capacity. Prayer is shifting the burdens of our hearts to Jesus heart.

Prayer is accepting His promises that He wants our burdens and all the draining encumbrances that we can’t handle.

But prayer is also getting those feelings out on the table, all those unwanted doubts.  This is where we can gain a sense that even though we may feel that God is not hearing us, or that He’s holding out on us, or giving us a rock instead of bread, or poison instead of soothing medicine.  No matter what our tangled heart feels, we can still be honest and place it all in front of His love and understanding ear.

O Lord, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? 

To feel unheard, unheeded, unnoticed, unremarkable, undetected and unobserved is a lonely encumbrance and strain.

   The Disregard Of God v.3

   The Defiance Of God’s Law v. 4

No Standards                       Therefore the law is slacked, 

Enable veracity to stand alone in your principles and light

The law is God’s principles, His design for rational life.  The law is God’s instruction of how we’re to love.  We are fulfilled only when we pour out love for God and His love in us, for each other.  This is the way life is supposed to work. This is God’s design.  This is how everything goes smoothly and civilization is preserved in order and perfection

To say that God’s law is slacked is to observe that people don’t care about what is right.  To slack something is to loosen it up.  The laws of our nation have been slacked as they have been redefined and liberalized over and over.

Slacked in the Hebrew means to be fainted and weakened.  It means to prostrate and reduce, to paralyze and numb.  We have a slang expression in our culture in which we say someone is slacking.  In the urban dictionary slacking means being lazy, not working, or being lackadaisical, half-hearted and apathetic.

This slacking of the law is the circumstance where the majority has no respect for the true law.  People don’t comprehend that order is a result of promoting and complying with God’s law.  There is a difference between the principle of law and the principles of law.  We are free of one but there is no freedom or point to break the other.

When humanity rejects law, which is the only force that brings unity, peace and order, then they embrace chaos and create anarchy and mayhem.

We seem all confused about the decline and deterioration of our nation and world. Why can’t we recognize that it’s the perversion of the law, and the slacking of its precepts that are the main issue?  Therefore the law is slacked.

But is God disregarding us in this time, is He ignoring us and avoiding our cries to Him, No, nothing can separate us from the love of God.  Not death, or life, not nakedness or peril or violence.  Demons can’t get between God and us; nothing from the past, nothing in the present and not a thing in the future can interfere with God’s control of all things.

He hears every prayer, answers every prayer and invites every prayer.

Two prayers were made in Dothan in the Old Testament.  The first prayer was from Joseph, Gen.37:17, which started in Dothan when it was a pasture area.  He came to his brothers to check on them for their father Jacob, and everything went wrong. He was thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, falsely accused of rape, thrown into prison and this all culminated into a lengthy incarceration.  It seemed like there was no answer to Joseph’s prayer and everything goes haywire.  I’m sure he began to cry the minute he was tossed into a pit and the answer of release was 14 years off.

The second prayer was from Elisha 2 Kings 6:13, hundreds of years later in Dothan that is now a city. Savage forces of the Syrian army surround the city.  It appeared under this siege everyone would be destroyed, and Elisha prayed and God sent angels in chariots of fire to surround the alien threats. Elisha declared an amazing truth as he viewed the situation as he said.

They that are with us are greater then they that are with them.

Were the chariots of fire from God missing when Joseph prayed and only present when Elisha prayed?  No, God was working a different salvation through His man Joseph then He was through His servant Elisha.

God is for us, nothing is against us and we can pray in confidence. He hears and is working His will and purposes for His ultimate glory and our crucial good.

No Security      and judgment doth never go forth:   

Educate us to pray through to enact Your sovereign decisions 

   The Defenselessness Of God’s People 

Surrounded By The Grotesque   for the wicked doth compass about the

                                                                      righteous;

When outnumbered, demonstrate that nothing is against us, when You are for us & give us a faith perspective that rises above & works through every difficulty & seeming setback

Strangled By The Gruesome       therefore wrong judgment  proceeds 

Disallow with right perspectives when destructive decision rages 

When we have the incorrect standards, we make improper decisions.  Or another way of saying it is, the wrong rules result in the wrong results.  Or the wrong direction will place us into the wilderness of wobbly destinations.

The law of the Lord is love.  Character is the fulfillment of God’s commandments and His laws are summed up in the character and walk of Christ.

When we are obsessed by any other pursuit then being close to our life in Him and we fail to allow His Spirit to fill our lives and His Word be our firm standard then inadequate results will mark our life.

Jesus said if we abide, or are close to Him, and He abides, or is free to live His life through us, by His Spirit, that we can ask in prayer, and we will see His answers in our life.

When we feel all we’re getting in our requests is unanswered prayer, we need to go back to God’s Word and learn from the testimony of the why God delays at times.

Maybe He’s developing our patience and perseverance.  God’s denials might be His developing of Christ’s life in us.  He didn’t remove Paul’s problem but He did give the grace of enablement to aid and assist his needs for every moment and circumstance.  The Lord’s supportive facilitation is really the answer in every prayer. His grace to respond is His answer.  We are to desire His will and purpose not our will.

The goal is not the removal of the difficulty or even the healing of the disease but more the help of His Spirit within to bring glory to God and show what Jesus is doing in and through us in the situations of life.

The unexpected ways of God are the crackle of the supernatural that show His empowering capacity no matter what the challenge.  God’s answers can be incredibly unexpected, unpredictable and amazing.  The best way to stay on our feet is to stay on your knees.

It doesn’t matter how powerless the civil, spiritual or parental authorities are around us.  Prayer is God’s power unleashed in all situations and time frames of our life and we need to grow in our faith in a living Lord who is in touch with every circumstance of our life.