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I admit that Habakkuk 2:2 use to be a great motivating biblical scripture to help me accomplish the goals that I set. My paraphrase…”Write the vision, make it plain so that I can run with it” was what I read and declared aloud! My business background helped me to set goals, predict the outcome and challenges, and then follow through with what needed to be done to meet the goal within the timed deadline. The only problem was I didn’t know or expect a lovely wilderness experience where nothing worked, except developing an intimate relationship with the Lord.

The last few weeks of 2018, I began to sense the Lord bringing me back to this scripture in Habakkuk. My argument of course was, “Lord, surely we do not need to write the Vision/New Years resolution for the new year, because everyone breaks them anyway.” However, I did take the opportunity to study (not just read) this Old Testament “Minor” Prophet Habakkuk and what he wrote. Minor simply means his writing was short, not that it wasn’t important. For instance, in Habakkuk 2:4 it says, “But the righteous will live by faith.” Think of how Martin Luther changed society with this incredible verse that Habakkuk wrote!

Now Habakkuk was doing his fair share of complaining about the Chaldeans (Babylonians). He questioned the fairness of God’s management of the world and how evil seems to win out over the righteous. He saw violence, lawbreaking, and injustice going unpunished. By the end of Habakkuk 2 he did conclude that because of God’s holiness, his own questions were not justified.

Part of God’s answer to him in Habakkuk 2:2 was to “Record the vision, and inscribe it on tablets, that the one who reads it may run.” I started to do a Hebrew word study on some of the English words, knowing it always brings a depth, and many times a totally different meaning to the English word in scripture. The word “vision” (chazown), means to “see, a mental sight, a dream, vision, a revelation, a prophecy.” I realized that God wanted each of us to write what He has spoken to us and make it clear.

The next part was much more than a New Year’s Resolution. The word “read” (quara) means to “proclaim, not just read it.” It was addressed to a specific recipient (us) and intended to elicit a specific response. It was not to the casual reader. It was also to name or declare the sovereignty over the things being named. Not just reading, but meditating and allowing the vision to penetrate your whole being so you may run with it.

The application of this scripture is to write out our words, prophecies, what we sense in prayer, highlighted scriptures, or how He spoke to us when we were journaling. Then, not just read them, but allow them to soak into our spirit. Mediate on them and allow the “vision” to motivate you by His Spirit. In Habakkuk 2:3 it does say: “For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay.” So if the vision has not yet come to pass, the appointed time will come! Even in his waiting, Habakkuk concluded at the end in 3:18: “Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.”

I hope you will use the beginning of 2019 to review how God has spoken and communicated His “vision” for you. Allow it to permeate you, so you will be ready to run when the appointed time reveals itself!

In His Covenant Love,


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