Habakkuk 3:17 for the Expat

Sometimes, and I say this with some regret, when we get together with other expats, it’s all we can do to gripe at the discouraging day to day frustrations that wear us all down. 

Days where nothing gets accomplished, meetings you carefully prepared for are cancelled, perfectly preventable accidents strike--nearly causing death, pets and children and housekeepers get sick all at once, the electricity clicks off just as you’ve put dinner to bake in the oven, promises are broken, cars break down or get ticketed for no reason other than that they can see you’re a foreigner and the idea of booking the next ticket out of the country and saying goodbye forever is compelling.

And so, with due respect for the dire situation described in the original text of the Bible, here is Habakkuk 3:17 for the Expat: 

“Though the lecture you gave last week seems to have gone in one ear and out the other, though you’re sick again, and taxi drivers try to cheat you, though children pull your hair on your walk to work, and your computer crashes, though the shouts of “Give me my money!” never cease, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

Let it be true of us!

"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior." Habakkuk 3:17-18