Verse of the Day for March 23

The verses before this are a demolition of idols. Habakkuk describes a man carving something out of wood, overlaying it with gold, and then saying to it, Awake. The prophet's verdict is blunt: there is no breath at all in the midst of it.

But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

The contrast is between two kinds of noise. The idol has to be shouted at because there is nothing in it. The living God requires silence because there is.

That is an uncomfortable test to apply to your own praying. Volume and repetition are what you use on something that cannot hear.

Habakkuk has spent the whole book complaining loudly, and the complaints were legitimate — God answered them. But he ends the argument in silence, before an answer has fully arrived.

The next chapter is a prayer set to music. Silence was not the end of speaking. It was the thing that had to come before the song.

The prophet who argued hardest with God is the one who calls for silence, and he does it before he has what he asked for.

Silence here is not resignation. It is the recognition that somebody is actually in the room.