2026 Sacred Whispers Blog

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines… yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”

Habakkuk 3:17–18

Have you ever the light of hope slowly slipping away?  Seasons where the sun seems slow to rise and quick to set. Seasons when your spirit feels like a room with the curtains drawn, dim, quiet, and heavy. I think of a story I once read from the early desert fathers of North Africa. It tells of a poor farmer who endured a year so merciless that it felt as if the sky itself had forgotten how to be kind. Rain refused to fall. The earth cracked into splintered lines. His crops withered before they had a chance to breathe. His animals weakened and died one by one until only silence remained in the barnyard that used to echo with life.

One night, under a sky emptied of stars, he knelt in the dust beside the last remnants of what once was his livelihood. His hands shook. His heart felt hollow. He buried his face in his palms and wept in a way that only desperate people know how to weep, when sorrow rolls through the chest like a storm with no horizon. Nothing in his world looked like hope. Nothing in his soil looked like promise. Nothing in his reality looked like joy. But as the first thin line of dawn crept across the horizon, the story says he lifted his head from the dirt. And with tears still drying on his face and nothing around him changed, he whispered the most defiant prayer a human being can ever pray: “Yet…I will rejoice.”

The ancient storytellers said heaven leaned low in that moment, because there is nothing that catches the attention of God more than the sound of joy being chosen in the dark.

Søren Kierkegaard once observed, “Faith sees best in the dark.” I believe joy does too. Some joy does not come from what the eyes can see; it comes from what the heart refuses to surrender.

THE COURAGE OF A “YET”

Habakkuk prayed these words during one of the bleakest national crises in Israel’s history. His homeland was collapsing. His people were disoriented. The land he loved was stripped bare. If you read his words slowly, you can almost feel the weight of the losses:

No figs on the tree. No grapes on the vine. No olives in the press. No sheep in the pen. No cattle in the stall.

In modern language, he is saying, “Nothing in my life looks like what I prayed for.” And yet, there is that holy word, he says, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.” Not because the crops had returned, not because God explained Himself, not because the circumstances shifted, but because Habakkuk’s joy was never anchored in the harvest. It was anchored in the God who brings harvests out of barren ground.

• “Yet” is the pivot point of faith.
• “Yet” is the hinge that turns the soul toward hope.
• “Yet” is what you say when the darkness refuses to lift but God refuses to leave.
• “Yet” is the bravest word a believer can speak in the middle of a storm.

MY OWN “YET” SEASONS

I have lived through seasons where joy wasn’t something that floated into my life, it was something I had to wrestle for. Seasons where prayers bounced back like echoes in an empty room. Seasons where the weight of leadership felt heavier than my shoulders. Seasons where disappointment settled in the corners of my heart like dust that refused to be swept away. I’ve stepped into moments where the silence of God felt deafening, where dreams shook under the weight of delay, where the questions in my heart outnumbered the answers in my hands.

And in those seasons, I learned that joy is not always the natural response of a healed heart, sometimes it is the deliberate choice of a hurting one. Sometimes joy is chosen in the dark, long before it is felt in the light. Sometimes joy is a seed you plant with trembling hands, trusting that God will water what life has tried to starve.

THE SCRIPTURES WE CLING TO WHEN JOY FEELS FAR AWAY

When your spirit is bruised, when your prayers feel unanswered, when your nights stretch longer than your days, God does not tell you to conjure joy out of thin air. He gives you the Word, strong, steady, ancient, unshaken:

“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

“Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.” (Psalm 126:5)

“Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10)

“I will turn their mourning into joy and give them gladness for sorrow.” (Jeremiah 31:13)

“In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

These are not verses for peaceful days and sunny seasons. These are verses for hospital rooms, divorce courts, gravesides, late-night phone calls, unpaid bills, and the hollow ache of disappointment. These verses speak to those who must choose joy not because the night has ended, but because God is present within it.

WHEN JOY IS A SEED IN YOUR HAND

Choosing joy does not mean denying your pain, it means refusing to let pain have the final say. It means holding a seed of hope even when the soil looks barren. It means believing that God is capable of bringing life out of places that feel dead. Seeds do their best work underground. Joy might be buried right now. It might be hidden beneath the disappointment you haven’t voiced or the prayers that haven’t been answered. But buried things grow. Hidden things heal. Quiet things strengthen. God is still at work beneath the surface of your sorrow. Joy is not gone. It is simply waiting for its season.

PRAYER

Lord, I bring You the barren places of my life, the unfruitful seasons, the unanswered prayers, the quiet disappointments, and the long nights. Teach me the courage of “yet.” Anchor my hope in You, even when my circumstances give me no visible reason to rejoice. Plant joy in my heart again, not the loud joy of celebration, but the quiet, steady joy of trust. In Jesus’ name, amen.

SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE: PRACTICE YOUR “YET”

Today, write one sentence that begins with the word Yet. Let it be your declaration against despair. Pray it slowly. Believe it deeply. Speak it until your heart begins to feel the shift.

“Nothing has changed yet… yet I will trust You.”

“I can’t see the way yet… yet I will rejoice.”

“I don’t have answers yet… yet I will praise You.”

Your “yet” just might be the doorway through which joy finds its way back to you.