When I was doing my devotions and meditations the other morning, I decided to read the writings of the prophet Habakkuk.  I had not read Habakkuk in some time, although certain parts of the three chapters of his prophecy have stuck with me for decades.
     Habakkuk opens his prophecy with words about the Chaldeans (another name, in the time Habakkuk wrote, for the Babylonians).  He tells his readers that soon, very soon, the Chaldeans will rise up and sweep through the deserts of Mesopotamia, coming for, as he puts it, "violence," mocking kings, "swooping down" like eagles to "devour" their enemies, their horses "swifter than leopards" to capture and destroy all those who dare oppose them.
     After laying out the extent of Chaldean power, Habakkuk goes on to ask God why he isn't doing anything to stop this tribe from effecting its predations.  "Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?"  "Why do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously?  Why, God?  As so many of us have done since history began, the prophet wonders how a God who proclaims himself to be good seems to stand by while a fiercely antagonistic group of people decimates the land.
     At one point, Habakkuk asks God, "Why have you made men like the fish of the sea, like creeping things without a ruler over them?"  At this point, Habakkuk could be an existentialist:  if this life is nonsensical, why are we here, anyway?  What's the point? Absent some sort of positive divine intervention, people indeed seem like fish and all creeping things, soulless creatures who roam to live and die, for no apparent reason.
     What many of us may find particularly troubling, however, is this:  if God's presence ensures that we are meaningful and more than fish in the sea, then why do we not always see evidence of his presence in the upheavals of the planet?
     Therein lies the crux of the faith:  believing in goodness even when we do not visibly see it.