My olive tree is finally bearing fruit! First time. After years of rebuking, pruning, counselling, and cajoling. Admittedly the fruit is still very small. ‘Microscopic’ would be too small a word. ‘Tiny’ might be too big. But fruit no less. And the day shall surely come of reaping and crushing, and when buckets of golden oil shall flow in copious quantities across the kitchen floor. And for that day I wait with pounding heart!

It must be funny to live in an agricultural environment where actually, the opposite scenario is the big surprise: where after years of faithful production, there comes a time when the olive tree fails. But the Book records one such instance, in this famous lament: ‘Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails’ – which for me is what I call ‘normal’, but for the writer, Habakkuk, it’s an unmitigated disaster – what then?

The context is the threat of invasion. The Babylonian hordes are soon to descend on Habakkuk and his people. The very thought of it gives him a pounding heart. But yet in the midst of his trembling, the prophet’s faith shines: ‘Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour. The Sovereign Lord is my strength.’ It’s always been an astonishing response in the face of certain suffering, and will continue to be, until that time when the olive crop will never fail.