The world is not as it should be.
Your friend's daughter is diagnosed with leukaemia, your brother struggling with mental health can't get the help he needs, a veteran is denied his benefits, tragedy hits close to home.
Every morning the world seems to deteriorate one headline at a time.
Have you felt the frustration of injustice? The deep sorrow of suffering? The powerlessness to make a difference?
It's in these moments the little book of Habakkuk models for us how we can talk to God in our agony without losing our head or our hope; in Trembling Faith: How A Distressed Prophet Helps us Trust God in a Chaotic World, Taylor Turkington shows us how.
Trembling Faith by Taylor Turkington | Book Review
Content
Content
Purpose of the Book
Taylor Turkington writes this book about the book of Habakkuk because it’s where she’s found herself through the many ups and downs in life. She writes that Habakkuk models “how to speak to God when life is agonizing. He teaches us a way to face the corruption around us without sticking our heads in the sand..it’s a way of faith.” And it’s a way entirely relevant to us today.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION Faith in the Midst of Chaos
SECTION 1 Lament and Hope
CHAPTER 1 Faith and Paying Attention - God, please help
CHAPTER 2 Faith in a God Who Works - God what are you doing?
CHAPTER 3 Faith in the End - There is a way to live
SECTION 2 Injustice and Justice
CHAPTER 4 Faith Under Oppression - God, people are terrible
CHAPTER 5 Faith to Repent - God, I am terrible too
CHAPTER 6 Faith in the Glorious King - Knowledge of my glory will fill the earth
SECTION 3 Waiting and Joy
CHAPTER 7 Faith in the God Who Rescues - God, do it again
CHAPTER 8 Faith with Utter Loss - God, I will wait and trust
CONCLUSION - I am your salvation and strength
Summary
This book takes you through the book of Habakkuk. Each chapter weaves in illustrations with teaching about the context of this short prophetic book and naturally that means understanding Israel’s history as well. If this sounds academic, don’t worry, it’s not. This is easily written and engaging for the average reader.
My Take
Habakkuk’s situation can feel far from our lived experience, but it really isn’t. He lived in a time of political chaos, violence, and a whole lot of wrong. He had witnessed strong leadership, and even revival. Then, he saw it all crumble before his eyes as leaders lived for their own power and believed in their own authority.
Can't we relate?
When the world seems to be going haywire, it deeply affects our emotions as we wrestle, and our beliefs as we consider God in the midst of it all - our faith trembles. Taylor points us to Habakkuk's prayer and the importance of lament as a response to all we see that's wrong in the world. Our desperate prayers remind us God hates the evil we're seeing and how the world is revealing its brokenness.
We grieve and mourn losses, wars and tragedy in the world because things aren't right. Yet, for we who love and follow the Lord Jesus, we don't have to stay sitting in despair or submerged in powerlessness. We are tempted to doubt but in our cries to the Lord we can ask for the grace of deeper faith.
Because God is present. He is active. He is ruling.
And all the brokenness we see reminds us of our own brokenness and God's gift of grace to redeem us. He hasn't left us as we were, He won't leave this world the way it is now, this is our firm and constant hope.
How we respond to the happenings of the world has been on my mind lately. It's been a theme with patients I've been seeing at work who've been failing to reconcile what they observe with what they believe - some holding onto their True Hope and others who do not.
But I see what a privilege it is for us who believe to have hope, that our prayers are not powerless, they are powerful because He is Almighty. I wonder at the grace given us to come to our Lord with our wrestlings - because we will surely have them. know and believe, as Habakkuk reminds us, "yet I will triumph in Yahweh; I will rejoice int he God of my salvation! Yahweh my Lord is my strength" (Hab 3:18-19).
My Recommendation
If you've been struggling to hold onto faith in the midst of injustice or are plain old disheartened with the world, this book will be polysporin to your wounds as you dig into Habakkuk's prayers and mine the truths of God within them.
Quick Stats
# of pages: 224
Level of Difficulty: Easy
My Rating: 4 stars
From the Author
I hope you enjoy this short clip where Taylor and Jen discuss why women should study the Bible.
More Like This
Scriptures About Lament
Thus says the Lord, “A voice is heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; She refuses to be comforted for her children, Because they are no more.” (Jer 31:15)
Hear my prayer, O Lord! And let my cry for help come to You. Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress; Incline Your ear to me; In the day when I call answer me quickly. (Ps 102:1-2)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Cor 1:3-4)
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chr 7:14)
That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Phil 3:10-11)
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*A big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC and for the opportunity to post an honest review