Though it tarry, wait for it

"For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." Habakkuk 2:3

Habakkuk is not a comfortable prophet. His book opens with a complaint against God: how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? He is not asking for a blessing; he is asking for an account. And God does not correct him. God answers him.

This is the answer, and it holds something we forget: the time is already appointed. Not "will be appointed." Appointed. What you are waiting for has a date, and that date existed before your waiting did. Your impatience does not move it forward; your discouragement does not push it back.

"At the end it shall speak." The image is of something in motion, travelling toward its own moment. What God has said is not filed away somewhere waiting to be dealt with: it is on the road. Silence is not stillness. There is an enormous difference between a promise that has stopped and a promise in transit, and from where you stand, the two look identical.

Then comes the instruction: "though it tarry, wait for it." God did not say it will not be delayed. He anticipated the delay, announced it, and gave a specific instruction for that stretch. There is a kind of respect in that: He does not promise speed in order to head off the questions.

And the repetition at the end — "it will surely come, it will not tarry" — is not rhetorical insistence. In Hebrew, doubling a verb makes it categorical. God is not merely reassuring; He is closing the question.

Today. Tell the two tirednesses apart. There is the tiredness of waiting, and there is the tiredness of doubting you heard correctly. They do not have the same remedy. The first calls for patience. The second calls for going back to the moment the word was given, and reading it again.

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