By David Harper
I was talking with a friend and client the other day. I wanted to wish her a happy birthday—but I couldn’t. She was distraught.
We share many Christian values and are probably both empaths. We feel the pain of others deeply—a gift from God, yet at times, a heavy burden.
She shared her heartbreak over the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the senseless school shootings happening in our world. We grieved the prevalence of evil around us. And although we both believe that God is in control—finding some comfort in that—she asked a haunting question:
"But is He still in charge?"
That question led us into a deeper conversation—one that echoes the major themes found in many of the books of the Minor Prophets at the end of the Old Testament. You know—Obadiah, Amos, Micah, Habakkuk, Haggai… typical neighborhood names.
These prophets wrestled with difficult truths: the presence of evil in the world, the prosperity of the wicked, and the painful reality that sometimes evil people are even allowed to punish God’s chosen ones. If God is good, why does He allow this?
They are hard questions.
And yet, in the midst of deep uncertainty, one of the strongest declarations of faith in all of Scripture comes from the prophet Habakkuk:
“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to tread on the heights.” — Habakkuk 3:17–19
I shared with my friend a prayer I sometimes whisper: “Oh Lord, may my heart break with the things that break Your heart.”
But I confessed—I couldn’t say that prayer today. My heart was already too broken.
Yet even there, in our shared sorrow, God met us. And together, we proclaimed what we know to be true:
“At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” — Philippians 2:10–11
The knee will bow—voluntarily or involuntarily. But