Pray the Word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

Abak chapter 3, verses 17 and 18.

These are some of the most beautiful words, I think, in all the Bible.

Verse 17, 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 oh get the picture abacicuk just lists all the evidences of emptiness and despair and sorrow in this world. A fig tree, not blossoming, no fruit on the vines. The olive having no produce, the fields yielding no food, the flock being

cut off from the fold, there's no herd in the stalls, so it's just empty. Everything is empty and dry

and barren in this world. That's the picture here. And then Habakkuk says, yet in the middle of the dryness and the

barrenness and the emptiness of everything in this world, everything we look to in this world,

we long for in this world, we need in this world, even food amidst emptiness and barrenness,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

What a statement of faith that when this world is totally empty,

it is possible to still have joy, to rejoice.

How is that possible when we look to God?

This is what Romans 5 means when Paul says, we rejoice in suffering.

How do you rejoice in suffering? Here's how.

Think about what suffering is. Suffering is losing things in this world that we love, that we

desire that are in many ways good for us and comforting to us.

Like if we lose someone we love, like, oh, that's suffering.

When we lose our health and we're in pain when we're fighting cancer,

...