Although — yet

Count the losses Habakkuk lists: figs, vines, olives, fields, flock, herd. In an agricultural economy that is not a bad year — it is everything, the entire livelihood, gone item by item. The prophet does not soften the inventory. He writes the whole catastrophe out in full, and then writes one word against it: Yet.

Yet I will rejoice in the LORD. Notice what the joy is in — not the situation, which is ruin, but the LORD, who is not. This is the secret of the most weathered saints you have known: their joy was never mortgaged to their circumstances, so the circumstances could not repossess it.

“I will” appears twice — rejoicing here is a decision made in advance of any feeling, a flag planted in scorched ground. Perhaps some part of your inventory has failed, or is failing. Write your own although-list honestly, as the prophet did. Then, with him, put the yet against it. The God of your salvation remains — and that was always the item the joy was drawn on.