Who do you think you are— building a town by murder, a city with crime? Don’t you know that God-of-the-Angel-Armies makes sure nothing comes of that but ashes, Makes sure the harder you work at that kind of thing, the less you are? Meanwhile the earth fills up with awareness of God’s glory as the waters cover the sea. -Habakkuk‬ ‭2:12-14‬ (msg)

I very much know because of my human heart, this verse can be dismissed if we view ourselves as someone who is neither a murderer or a criminal by the standard of the world’s labels – but! If we hold ourselves up to Jesus’ standard in the Sermon on Mount: You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not murder,’ and ‘Whoever murders shall be guilty before the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who continues to be angry with his brother or harbors malice against him shall be guilty before the court; and whoever speaks [contemptuously and insultingly] to his brother, ‘Raca (You empty-headed idiot)!’ shall be guilty before the supreme court (Sanhedrin); and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of the fiery hell. – we quickly realize that in our hate, we murder. In our self-rightness, we hate. Habakkuk prophesies here that the harder we work in our self-rightness, the less we are. We are nothing without Him… no matter what the world says… no matter what we accomplish here on this earth in terms of earthly success. This could be depressing if it weren’t so completely freeing because despite our awareness or lack of awareness of Him, the earth fills up with awareness of God’s glory as the waters cover the sea. He is the surety not our awareness of His surety. But man does it make me want to fight to keep my eyes on the One Who isSurety.