Audio  “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” That’s the old saying. But where do the tough go when the going gets tough? If we take Scripture seriously, as well we should, then we know that we go to the Lord in prayer when the going gets tough. The Bible does not sugar coat life in this fallen world. The people of faith whose lives are described in these pages were real people who lived real lives in the real world. They endured hardships and difficulties as great as, or greater than, any that we have experienced. Though their circumstances and specific struggles varied, one thing they have in common is that each one found prayer to be a refuge in the storm. The prophet Habakkuk is but one of many examples to whom we could point. His nation was filled with violence, corruption, and injustice. The righteous were oppressed by the wicked, and immorality was rampant. Habakkuk had prayed for a long time, with no answer, but then God spoke. His answer was not what Habakkuk wanted to hear. Things were about to get worse, as God had revealed to Habakkuk that He was raising up the Chaldeans (the Babylonians) to come in as agents of divine judgment in the land. The going had gotten tough and was about to get tougher. But these things did not drive Habakkuk away from the Lord. He returned repeatedly to the Lord in prayer in the face of these troubles. Why did he do that? What is it about the Lord that keeps us coming back to Him in prayer when the going gets tough? We come to Him time and time again because of who we know Him to be. Because of who He is, we can entrust to Him the concerns and burdens of our hearts and souls. So, who is He? As we examine this portion of Habakkuk’s prayer, we find a vivid description of who God is and what He is like. Habakkuk addresses his prayer to God in a specific and personal way. He is not crying out to some indistinct deity with agnostic desperation. He calls upon the Lord by name. In verse 12, he addresses Him as “Lord,” and when English versions use all capital letters for “Lord,” it is an indication that the Hebrew word underlying this translation is the divine name YHWH. This is the name by which the Lord revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush, saying, “I Am that I Am.” The name is related to the Hebrew verb “to be,” and speaks of God’s self-existence. He was not created by anyone or anything else, nor is He dependent upon anyone or anything else. The very mention of His name tells us that He alone is the only God who is. Habakkuk called Him by that name which testifies to His existence and His attributes. The attributes of God are not like pearls on a string, which may be removed from one another and examined in isolation. Rather, they are like facets of a diamond, which can only be appreciated fully when seen in relationship to the other attributes. God’s attributes are revealed to us in Scripture, and seldom do we find a single attribute stated in isolation. They cannot be separated. As Tozer noted, “almost every heresy … has arisen from believing about God things that are not true, or from overemphasizing certain true things so as to obscure other things equally true. … We can hold a correct view of truth only by daring to believe everything that God has said about Himself.”[1] In Habakkuk’s prayer, he shows us that he dares to do just such a thing. He believes what God has said about Himself – all of it! And, as he calls out to Him in prayer, he reminds us of who this God is and what He is like. He is YHWH, the eternal, omnipotent, holy, faithful, sovereign, and steadfast One. And that is good news for us when the going gets tough, because we can get going to Him in prayer. I. YHWH is the eternal God. Whenever we sing John Newton’s hymn “Amazing Grace,” we sing a stanza that is not original to the song. It says, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.” We don’t know who