A Word from Joel - July 16, 2025
“Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faithfulness.”
Habakkuk 2:2-4
Richard Rohr describes the wisdom pattern as moving from order to disorder into reorder. This is a cyclical pattern we go through time and again throughout our lives. All of us have seasons of order and thank God for them. Ideally, this is what we are born into, a family and community who love and support us, not perfectly but adequately. In this framework, life makes sense. Virtue is rewarded, while wickedness is punished. This is effectively the message of karma: we reap what we sow. There is truth to it. It’s just not the whole story. As we age, the moral certainties we are taught as children are challenged. Eventually every season of order gives way to disorder, where the rules we had been told are challenged. We see the wicked flourish while the righteous perish. This is what Habakkuk is all about: learning to trust God amidst holy disorder.
As painful as disorder is, it’s a necessary part of our growth and development. Richard Rohr writes: “True prophets will guide us into, hold us inside of, and then pull us through the other side of what will always seem like disorder. The more you have bought into any kind of absolute and necessary order, the bigger dose of disorder you will need.” This explains what we are going through as a culture right now. The horse pills of disorder that we are currently swallowing are proportionate to the oversized trust we had placed in our own greatness. Maybe we are not as good or great as we thought we were and perhaps learning that is the hard but necessary lesson of our times. Disorder is humbling and is the path to reorder, for God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.
Amidst societal collapse, God reminds Habakkuk and the rest of us that we haven’t seen the end of the story yet. We can look at the tragedies of our lives and our times, and to us it appears that justice is gone, and hope has died, but we don’t know what’s still to come. God still has a vision for the future and invites us to do what no one likes to do, which is to wait for it. Beloved, God is present to us in times of disorder in ways that order cannot reveal. God is richly present even in the worst of circumstances and invites our honesty and grief amidst disorder until one day a new vision is born. That day is coming. I promise you. While you wait for the new day to come, may you live by faith, knowing that God is and will always be faithful to you.
-Rev. Joel Esala
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.
Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faithfulness.”
Habakkuk 2:2-4
Richard Rohr describes the wisdom pattern as moving from order to disorder into reorder. This is a cyclical pattern we go through time and again throughout our lives. All of us have seasons of order and thank God for them. Ideally, this is what we are born into, a family and community who love and support us, not perfectly but adequately. In this framework, life makes sense. Virtue is rewarded, while wickedness is punished. This is effectively the message of karma: we reap what we sow. There is truth to it. It’s just not the whole story. As we age, the moral certainties we are taught as children are challenged. Eventually every season of order gives way to disorder, where the rules we had been told are challenged. We see the wicked flourish while the righteous perish. This is what Habakkuk is all about: learning to trust God amidst holy disorder.
As painful as disorder is, it’s a necessary part of our growth and development. Richard Rohr writes: “True prophets will guide us into, hold us inside of, and then pull us through the other side of what will always seem like disorder. The more you have bought into any kind of absolute and necessary order, the bigger dose of disorder you will need.” This explains what we are going through as a culture right now. The horse pills of disorder that we are currently swallowing are proportionate to the oversized trust we had placed in our own greatness. Maybe we are not as good or great as we thought we were and perhaps learning that is the hard but necessary lesson of our times. Disorder is humbling and is the path to reorder, for God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.
Amidst societal collapse, God reminds Habakkuk and the rest of us that we haven’t seen the end of the story yet. We can look at the tragedies of our lives and our times, and to us it appears that justice is gone, and hope has died, but we don’t know what’s still to come. God still has a vision for the future and invites us to do what no one likes to do, which is to wait for it. Beloved, God is present to us in times of disorder in ways that order cannot reveal. God is richly present even in the worst of circumstances and invites our honesty and grief amidst disorder until one day a new vision is born. That day is coming. I promise you. While you wait for the new day to come, may you live by faith, knowing that God is and will always be faithful to you.
-Rev. Joel Esala
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