Habakkuk 2: Find Your Watch Post to Hear God

Introduction

"The treasure isn't being able to say something. The treasure is having heard something." Guest pastor Simon Foster is speaking at "The Altar," the Tuesday night prayer meeting at Birmingham City Church. The church is spending its Sundays on the gifts of the Spirit from 1 Corinthians 12, and tonight's theme is prophecy.

The pastor who introduces him has known him for years and says he has a real heart for the prophetic. Simon Foster himself makes it clear from the start: "I'm not here tonight to teach you about the prophetic. I'm here to help you be prophetic."

His message starts in Ephesians 3:20, passes through Abraham and the Garden of Eden, and rests mainly on Habakkuk 2:1-2, a passage that changed his life about thirty years ago. It ends with a practical exercise: checking that your "equipment" works.

Message Outline

1. When God Speaks, He Invites You

Simon Foster became a Christian at 24. God didn't speak to him in an audible voice, but he touched his heart so deeply that he could no longer drive his car: the purity, holiness and beauty of God filled the car "as if it were the holiest place on earth."
The Spirit transforms us from the inside out. Yet most of us live from the outside in, under the influence of the world. Jesus said he did only what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19).
When God shows us something, we argue and negotiate. "When God speaks, he doesn't give advice. He invites us into an experience."
With all the noise of the world and the cultural upheaval, the church's priority is to learn to hear God's voice and do what the Father asks. For him, that is the purpose of prophecy.
He has seen people get offended because they couldn't prophesy in the middle of a meeting. But the treasure isn't speaking, it's hearing. God wants to speak to you all day long: about the person you met on the bus, about the phone conversation, about the problem you're going through.
The danger is being led by the intellect rather than the spirit. "Our intellect will always rob us of the simplicity with which the Spirit speaks."

2. Your Imagination, the Womb Where God Plants His Seed

Ephesians 3:20 speaks of the one who can do "exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think." For the preacher, the whole verse rests on these two realities: what we ask and what we imagine.
Our prayers should be born from our imagination. But the enemy has hijacked it and stolen it from the church. We believed that having the mind of Christ simply meant having no bad thoughts. For him, it is "the art of thinking in a bright, hopeful way," because God knows the end from the beginning.
He cites the Hebrew word paga: God, by his Spirit and often through his Word, comes to meet us in our inner life. He speaks first to our thoughts, to our imagination.
Out of fear, we have closed that door. So we haven't dreamed the dreams God wanted to give us, or looked at the landscapes that are open to us in the heavenly places.
Abraham had no address and no GPS. He had a promise: descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore (Genesis 22:17). Every day he walked on the sand, every night he looked at the stars. God used the ordinary to help him imagine an extraordinary future.
His question: "How is your imagination? Is it redeemed? Is it connected to the wonder of God?" You were created to be fascinated. In heaven, you will say without end, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty" (Revelation 4:8). You don't have to wait for heaven to catch a glimpse of his glory.
"Do you think you need an update? I know I do." He asks God to widen his inner space to the north, south, east and west, and to stop him from thinking small when the King of glory is leading him in victory.

3. Knowing God Is Intimacy, Not Intellectual Agreement

Christianity is unique in this: elsewhere, people talk to God, but here God talks to people.
"This is eternal life, that they should know you" (John 17:3). That word "know" evokes the intimacy of a husband and wife, two lives so intertwined that you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. Too often we settle for an intellectual agreement with the truth.
People in love talk only about each other. His daughter just got engaged, he smiles, and now all he hears about is her fiancé. That's how we are called to live with God.
"Don't believe the enemy's lies that tell you you're not good enough for God. Jesus is good enough for God. And if that's enough for God, you are good enough for God."
Zephaniah 3:17: the Lord rejoices over you with singing. That is what happens when God sees you. The question is: what happens when you see him?
"Worship prepares your heart to receive his Word." The sound of his voice is the sound we are called to live in. Everything else is noise.

4. "I Will Stand at My Watch": Find Your Meeting Place

Habakkuk 2:1: "I will stand at my watch, and set myself on the tower, and will look out to see what he will say to me." The preacher sees four postures of the heart in it.
The first posture: standing at your post. For him, the "quiet time" doesn't exist in the Bible. We are called to a constant orientation toward God, not an occasional one.
As a young believer, he was told to pray at 5 a.m. At 5:10, he was asleep, slumped over the edge of the bed, feeling guilty. He was a singer in a nightclub and never went to bed before 4 a.m.
At church they would announce, "The Lord is here," and he wondered where. People then imply there are only two explanations: sin, or not being born again. He adds with humor a third possibility: he doesn't love you. By asking his questions, he discovered that God had created him to meet him in a unique way.
His conversion happened in a car, not in a church. "Is God accidental in his interactions, or strategic?" If you love sports, there may be an invitation in your physical effort.
His own place is a shed at the bottom of the garden. He has four scents that he chooses depending on how he senses the Spirit leading him: one for intimacy and longing, another for the triumph of Jesus' finished work, when he needs to see the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Nobody sees him there: it's his love language with God.
There, he doesn't speak. He takes a notebook and waits for his presence, sometimes an hour or an hour and a half, sometimes right away. "If I want him to speak, maybe I should be quiet." For you, it might be the countryside, music, reading, or the company of other people.

5. "To See": Incline Your Heart and Find Communion Again

The second posture: looking. Habakkuk turns the eyes of his heart toward his God. This orientation comes before God arrives. The text doesn't say hear, but see: God speaks to our imagination.
We are called to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength (Mark 12:30) because he loves us with all his heart, all his intelligence and all his power.
The third posture: recognizing the sound of God. This is where communion begins. Adam walked with God as a friend and didn't know himself to be inferior. After the fall: "I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself" (Genesis 3:10).
A cycle appears: shame, fear, control. Fear, which Adam had never known. Shame, which doesn't say "I did something wrong" but "there is something wrong with me." Control, which pushes us to negotiate how we meet God.
The preacher tells how, at his conversion, as he was leaving his old life, he kept hearing that he was "fearfully and wonderfully made" and that God had "knit him together in his mother's womb" (Psalm 139:13-14). He thought God had dropped a stitch. That is shame.
What Adam lost, Jesus, the last Adam, has redeemed. That is why we can come boldly to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16), not out of arrogance but because Christ is our victory.
"The fight for intimacy is the greatest spiritual battle in the body of Christ today." Our phones and our schedules leave no room. Worship reframes us: God inhabits the praises of his people (Psalm 22:3).

6. "Write the Vision": Keep a Record of What God Is Doing

The fourth posture: writing (Habakkuk 2:2). The vision is what you can imagine.
Before marrying his wife, he goes off to Bible school, anxious. Coming out of the old life he had lived, he fears ruining the life of the woman he loves. He also worries about his mother, whom he protected and supported financially. He writes a letter to God to entrust all of this to him.
For three years, at every school break, he packs up his books and forgets the letter. On graduation day, it falls on the floor. He recognizes his handwriting and reads it: everything he had asked, God had done, "good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over" (Luke 6:38).
The couple was married in the auditorium of that very church. He cried through the whole service.
"If you're in dialogue with God, keep a record of what you ask him." Otherwise, we move forward without looking back and forget that he opened a path where there was none.

7. Testing the Equipment: From the Fridge to Prophecy

He asks the congregation to close their eyes and picture their refrigerator, then open it and say what's inside: olives, dates, curry stew, blueberries, salmon. Some can even smell it.
If imagination can do that for an unimportant object, imagine what it becomes when it is connected to the glory of God. "No wonder the devil works so hard to steal the thinking of God's people."
He invites everyone to put a hand on a neighbor's shoulder, to ask the Spirit to speak to their imagination for that person, without praying in tongues, in listening mode. Then to share an image, a feeling, a verse or a few words, even if it doesn't make sense right away.
"How do you know it's God? Who did you ask to speak to you?" You asked the God who lives in you, because your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). The devil has limited resources: don't give him credit he doesn't deserve.
"My sheep hear my voice" (John 10:27): this is not a possibility reserved for the holiest among us, it is a statement. "Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4).
He distinguishes clumsy prophecy, where you learn but there is something of God in it, from bad prophecy, which contradicts the nature of God. He doesn't allow prophecies about births, marriages and deaths: "We're still at the fridge stage."
The first experience isn't about understanding, it's about receiving. Thank the Father, then ask him lots of questions: "Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you" (Matthew 7:7).

Key Takeaways

The treasure isn't being able to speak on God's behalf, but having heard God.
God speaks first to your imagination. It isn't something to shut down out of fear, but to let be redeemed.
There is no single model: God created you to meet him in a way that fits you. Find your watch post.
Shame, fear and control pull you away from his presence. Jesus redeemed what Adam lost: you can come near with confidence.
Write down what you ask and what God shows you, so that one day you can praise him for what he has done.

Personal Application

Where is your watch post? Are you trying to live someone else's invitation instead of your own?
How is your imagination? Is it connected to the wonder of God, or mostly occupied with your problems?
When God shows you something, do you simply obey, or do you start to negotiate?
In your relationship with God, do you recognize the cycle of shame, fear and control? What keeps you from coming near with confidence?
This week, can you write a letter to God or start a notebook of what you ask him?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "finding your watch post" mean according to Habakkuk 2?

For Simon Foster, Habakkuk's watch post isn't a prayer time imposed at a fixed hour, but the place God has prepared to meet you in a unique way. For him, it's a shed at the bottom of the garden. For you, it might be a walk in the countryside, music, reading, or the company of other people.

Why does God speak to our imagination?

Paul speaks of what we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20) and Habakkuk says, "I will look out to see." For the preacher, the imagination is the womb where God plants his seed. Jesus himself did only what he saw the Father doing. The enemy has hijacked this place, but God wants to redeem it.

How can you tell whether an image or an impression comes from God?

Simon Foster asks: who did you ask to speak to you? You asked the God who lives in you. Jesus says, "My sheep hear my voice," and the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. First receive what comes, even without understanding it all, then ask your questions to the Father.