Yet I Will Rejoice

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 60, Yet I Will Rejoice.

Listen to these words from the prophet Habakkuk, chapter 3, verses 17 and 18:

"Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls — yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation."

Let that settle for just a moment.

Habakkuk is not writing from a place of plenty. He is standing in front of an empty field. And he knows exactly what is empty — he counts it. The fig tree. The vines. The olive groves. The fields. The flock. The stall. One by one. Loss by loss. He doesn't look away. He doesn't pretend things are fine. He doesn't wrap the pain in comfortable words. He takes an honest inventory of his life — and that, all by itself, is an act of courage. Real faith does not ask you to lie about what you're going through.

But then comes one small word that turns everything.

"Yet."

Three letters. A hinge. The lament was wide open, and that word takes hold of it — and turns it. And on the other side of the hinge, there is no denial, no resignation — there is worship. "Yet I will rejoice in the LORD." Not in the harvest. In the LORD. Not in the flock. In the God of my salvation.

And that is where this gets deep.

When Habakkuk's joy depends on the harvest, any drought can tear it away. But when it depends on who God is — then no loss is powerful enough to take it. Because the field can go dry. The vine can wither. But the God of salvation does not wither with the fig tree. He is still standing when everything else falls. And that is what the prophet is anchored to — not circumstances, but character. The eternal character of a God who saves.

That makes me think about the difference between gratitude and faith. Praising God when the table is full — that is beautiful, that is gratitude. But praising Him when the table is empty — that is something else entirely. That is faith. And the deepest worship, the kind that rises straight into the heart of God, that worship is born in the empty field, on the lips of someone who has nothing to show but the trust they have placed in the Lord.

Habakkuk didn't arrive at that "yet" by accident. He chose it. In the middle of scarcity, he chose where to place his joy. And that choice was available to him because he knew the God he was rejoicing in.

That choice is available to you today.

So this morning, before breakfast — before you open your phone, before you check your messages — I want you to do what Habakkuk did. Name aloud the thing that has failed. Say the name of the loss, the empty field, the fig tree in your life that didn't blossom. Don't hide it. Say it out loud. And then finish the sentence: "Yet I will rejoice in the LORD." Say it like you mean it. Because you can mean it — not because your situation has changed, but because the God of your salvation has not changed.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.