How Can We Find Joy When We’ve Lost Everything?

March 10, 2021

By Vaneetha Rendall Risner

How can someone find joy after they’ve lost everything? That’s the mystery in the last verses of Habakkuk. It seems both impossible and unthinkable to find joy when everything we’ve worked for is gone.

Habakkuk 3:17 begins with, “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 …”

This verse is about total loss and abandonment. No figs. No fruit. No olives. No food. No sheep. No cattle. No livelihood. This passage is about losing everything. Having nothing to eat. Nothing to sell. Nothing to build a life on.

What does Habakkuk say to the Israelites about this devastating situation?

(Read the article here.)