The following is an edited transcript of an interview between Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley and Justin Folk, director of the hit comedic documentary “Am I Racist?“on a special Sunday Extra edition of Morning Wire. The Daily Wire’s new Matt Walsh-starring comedy “Am I Racist?” is now the most successful documentary to hit theaters in a decade — despite major headwinds from legacy media and a hostile Hollywood. We sat down with the director, Justin Folk, to discuss his film’s box office run, its launch on Daily Wire+, and why getting conservative content in theaters is now more crucial than ever. * * * JOHN: Joining us to discuss the box office run of the Matt Walsh comedy “Am I Racist?” is its director Justin Folk. Justin, great to have you on the show. JUSTIN: Yeah, thanks for having me. It’s good to be on with you guys. Listen to you guys a lot, actually. JOHN: We love to hear that. Look, you directed the Daily Wire’s first big documentary hit, “What Is A Woman?” This film is sort of a sequel in some ways, but it’s also very different on many levels – that includes this time you took your film to theaters. That’s a major risk, but it appears to have paid off here. First, how much has the film brought in from theaters at this point? JUSTIN: Well, we’ve passed the $12 million mark at the box office, which is very, very exciting and actually quite historic for a documentary. I believe we’re the top documentary of the decade. And to achieve that sort of level of success in the theaters out of the gate for The Daily Wire, I think, was a big achievement and I’m really proud of it. I know the team is proud of it. Ultimately, there were a lot of people involved in that effort. But at the base of it all, we had to make a good film for that to happen. You mentioned that this film is different than “What is a Woman?,” and that’s by design. We didn’t want to come out with a half-hearted sophomore effort, and we knew we had to do something different. We knew we had to kind of go bigger. “What is a Woman?” is a little bit more of a straightforward documentary. This one is much more of a comedy and we felt like the issue of race demanded a different approach. With what we’re seeing with all the race hustlers and the people who are dividing us as a society, we just felt like ridicule would be one of the best tools we could use when making this film. JOHN: Right. Speaking of ridicule, describing the film was actually a bit of a struggle sometimes for people. Some called it a “mockumentary,” which is not actually correct, but it did include a lot of mocking of things, as you said. If you could sum up the approach to this film, what were you trying to attain? JUSTIN: Well, first of all, let’s start with the category. It would officially be categorized as a comedic documentary, which isn’t a very sexy term. I don’t think those two things usually go together. So I think it’s hard for people to kind of understand what this is. But it’s comedic and so there’s a lot of laughs, there’s a lot of jokes in there, but it’s a documentary, too, because these are very real situations that we put Matt Walsh in and we wanted things to play out with real people. So that approach was something we basically started with. We knew the success of “What Is Woman?” was achieved by allowing people to kind of talk, to say what they really feel about things, and that was very eye-opening for Americans. In terms of race, same thing here, we wanted these people pushing this race agenda to just say in their own words what they felt and what they wanted for the rest of us as Americans. We felt that would be powerful for Americans just to see and then to decide for themselves if this is the right path. The approach involved taking Matt, dropping him into the situation with these people, and essentially having Matt believe them, then chart the course based on all of their prescriptions. And that’s what Matt did. He basically became one of them, and in doing so, I think we revealed the ideology underneath and what’s behind it all. When Matt adopted this character as an anti-racist grifter himself, you got to see what’s behind it philosophically and what it all leads to. And that was our goal, to have Matt become one of them, essentially. The Daily Wire JOHN: You know, it strikes me that this the “Yes, and…” approach that you learn in improv – the entire film is Matt performing a “Yes, and…” which really opens the door for letting some of these DEI “experts” go deeper into their ideology than they normally would if you started to question their approach. And it clearly worked here. Did you expect this kind of reception in theaters, this degree of success? JUSTIN: You know, I was hoping for this level of success, this reception. The thing that surprised me was how consistent the response was in terms of being positive and in terms of people understanding the humor. If I had a fear, it was that we were making a film that only the demographic males 25 to 55 would really enjoy, but the rest — women and older people — it would maybe just kind of go over their head. But that hasn’t been the case. I had the fortunate ability to go to some of these pre-screenings before the film came out, and I got to watch the audience react to a lot of the jokes and a lot of the things that were in the film. And it was universal. It was across the board, the reaction that we got from people in the audience – whether they were young or old or male or female. And that just gave me a big sense of pride that we made something that everybody can enjoy. Now some people think some jokes are funnier than others, and some people really love some moments in the film compared to others. But really it was, as a filmmaker, you try to make something that would be universally accepted and liked, and that was just great confirmation for what we did. JOHN: Now one of the controversies for the film early on involved critic reviews. This film has gotten outstanding audience reviews from the start, but was shunned by major media critics. Where did the critic reviews stand at this point? Did you get some of the legacy critics to actually weigh in? JUSTIN: We had a couple mainstream critics eventually limp in with a review. And I think they did that because they were sort of called out for, for ignoring this film. Initially they were staying away from it. We have our theory why they were staying away from it, and that involves the fact that it was a good film – and I don’t think they wanted to give Matt Walsh that platform. We did have a lot of, I guess, mid-tier critics review the film, and it was very, very well-accepted by them. And these are people with no ax to grind. These are people who don’t work for a major media entity, and they were just quite honest with their review and they just were like, “Wow, this is a very, very powerful and very funny film.” Some of them even got backlash for doing so. We can kind of understand why some of these mainstream critics ignored it because we knew they would actually face a lot of backlash. Screenshot courtesy: DailyWire. JOHN: Yeah. At what stage did you begin to plan for a theater launch? Was this the plan all along or did this sort of become more concrete later on? JUSTIN: Listen, there’s a lot of risk involved in going to the theater, and there are a lot of things that need to fall into place. And I’ve got to give credit to The Daily Wire team. I’ve got to give credit to Jeremy Boreing for navigating all that – Jon Lewis, Dave Coleman and the whole team. First of all, we had to convince theaters to take us. We had to convince the exhibitors themselves that this is something that they would want to have in their theaters and would actually do good business. And so there was a lot of hurdles along the way, and, meticulously, Daily Wire got over all those hurdles, and positioned this film in such a way that the exhibitors would take it. Also all the marketing that took place, there’s just so much involved in going to the theater. There’s a ton of risk, and that risk is something you definitely have to consider when launching into this. But I’m glad we did. I think we proved what we set out to do. And I just feel very fortunate that we were able to have people see this in theaters, where they could sit together in a group and laugh. JOHN: About that, how significant is it for conservatives in particular to get content into theaters like this? JUSTIN: As conservatives, we have to play on the battlefield that the rest of society plays on. We have a tendency to kind of shrink back into our silos and speak to only our people. And, listen, as conservatives, we have the best ideas, we have the winning ideas, and those ideas need to be played out on the main stage. And in the case of theaters, theaters are a main stage. Theaters are a place where a lot of people go for their entertainment. These are people, some of them, that aren’t really engaged in politics. These are people that have busy lives and don’t pay attention too much to a lot of the issues. And so we need to reach those people. And so, we need to perform the way the Left does when it comes to getting our ideas out there to the mainstream, and theaters is one way we can do that. And so, listen, not every conservative film is meant for the theaters. Different films have different purposes. In our case, we really went hard. We kind of went hard to the paint with the fact that we wanted to make this an entertaining movie first, and then have our ideas tucked in alongside. And, you know, that makes our film very palatable for a movie theater environment. But, listen, I think it’s very important that conservatives take some of that ground back from the Left and have our ideas play out on the main stage. JOHN: Yeah, and seeing this reach over 1,600 theaters was a massive deal, just almost symbolically. The film is now going to be available on demand exclusively on the Daily Wire+ platform. In general, do theater runs help or hurt streaming performance in the industry? JUSTIN: Theater runs. are extremely helpful. In fact, a lot of distributors refer to theatrical releases as a big marketing campaign. And I think that’s the truth here because it allows you to get your film out there in the public in a way that you wouldn’t normally have it out there. And so the theatrical release of “Am I Racist?” I think is only going to help really raise awareness with the general public, and then point those people back to Daily Wire+ to go watch it, if they didn’t get a chance to see it in theaters. And so, yeah, I think the theatrical release is really going to help this film. I think it’s going to really drive a lot of attention to it for the home entertainment platform and the Daily Wire+ platform. I’m excited about that because a lot of people didn’t get a chance to see it. People have busy lives, but at least they heard about it. And now they can go watch it on Daily Wire+. the good news there is they can watch as many times as they want, it’s not a one time viewing. And I do recommend that with this particular film. This is the type of film that you’re going to want to watch a couple of times just to catch all the great performances that Matt has throughout. DailyWire+ JOHN: Yeah, I found that myself, there’s so many little details that you miss the first time around. For you personally, this is a unique film. It’s unorthodox in many ways. As a filmmaker, what did you learn in the making of this particular film? JUSTIN: There’s a lot I learned in making any film, and it seems like every time we go out and do something we’re endeavoring to do something very difficult, and we’re diving into a topic. And when you dive into a topic, you have to sort of live it while you’re making it – and in this case, it was even more so, because Matt had to live this character, and so we had to essentially think like the other side. Matt had to adopt their beliefs and let them play out. So I learned a lot about the topic itself. I also learned a lot about America and how we view the issue of race, and how there are actually way more people who think rationally about this issue than I think we realize. It’s just that they’ve been taken advantage of. They’ve been polite. I think these people who are pushing this DEI agenda have taken advantage of so many people in this country who don’t want to be mean, who don’t want to be called a bigot. And so one of the things I learned was actually a hopeful thing, which was most people don’t go along with this stuff. They don’t go along with this racial division. That was sort of a hopeful thing I learned along the way. We found that common, everyday people don’t really buy what’s being sold by these so-called “race experts.” And so that was a very uplifting realization for me. JOHN: Some of the more powerful moments in the film came from just regular folks dismissing the racially divisive talking points. Final question, what’s next for you? Any plans to work further with Walsh or any other Daily Wire talent? Can you answer this question? JUSTIN: Absolutely. I mean, I can say that we are working on stuff and it’s been a pleasure to work with Matt on these last two films. We have such a great team. It’s a small, tight knit team of just great professionals who are just the best at what they do. And I’ll be honest with you, it’s a lot of fun making these movies with Matt. It’s not always easy, it’s a challenging thing to do what we’ve been doing, but it has been a ton of fun and we would love to keep that going. JOHN: Well, we hope you do. Justin, thank you so much for talking with us. It’s been a pleasure. JUSTIN: Thanks, John. Great to be on. JOHN: That was Justin Folk, director of “Am I Racist?” available starting this week exclusively on Daily Wire+ – and this has been a Sunday Extra edition of Morning Wire.

Adele and Celine Dion have immense respect for each other, which they made clear to fans during one of Adele’s most recent Las Vegas residency shows. On Saturday, October 26, Adele was singing When We Were Young at The Colosseum at Ceasar’s Palace when she spotted Celine sitting in a lower-level box seat. A video posted on X shows Adele approaching Celine mid-performance and giving her a warm embrace. ADELE AND CELINE! give me credits if you repost this. pic.twitter.com/c04Ek7AHjq— soph (@sophxadelexf1) October 27, 2024 Tears stream down Adele’s face as she holds the I’m Alive singer close. The two share a few words, and Celine kisses Adele’s hand before Adele returns to her song. Another fan video shows Adele holding back sobs as she belts her lyrics and dabs tears while engaging with visibly moved fans from the aisle. Adele in tears after hugging Celine Dion pic.twitter.com/mrVQkuVGjV— Adelettes (@Adelettes2) October 27, 2024  “This is just so pure and emotional to watch… Adele and Céline are such a moment,” a fan wrote in the comments of another video. “Wow, Celine is weeping. I love seeing gratitude on celebrities,” added another. “What a moment.” Adele Is A Céline Dion Superfan Adele, a self-proclaimed Celine Dion super fan, has supported Celine’s illustrious career throughout the decades and no doubt found inspiration in her work. Celine dropped her first single at only 12 and went on to become one of the most influential and iconic singers in history. However, the 56-year-old has largely stayed out of the spotlight after being diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that causes painful stiffness and spasms in the muscles. Per the Los Angeles Times, the five-time Grammy winner shared that her illness affects “every aspect” of her life, down to walking and breathing. It also took a toll on her vocal cords, which halted her career. Celine Dion took a break from singing in 2019. After undergoing treatment and therapy, she made a triumphant return to the stage during the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony. She has performed since. But the powerhouse singer continues to work with doctors and therapists and is determined to regain her strength. “I’m going to go back onstage, even if I have to crawl. Even if I have to talk with my hands, I will. I will,” she told Today in June. “I am Celine Dion—because today my voice will be heard for the first time, not just because I have to or because I need to. It’s because I want to, and I miss it.” You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post A Sobbing Adele Spotted Céline Dion At Her Concert—What She Did Next Moved Crowd To Tears appeared first on InspireMore.

'Hurt Americans'

I need this in my life

Dems' Closing Pitch to Young Men: Stop Being Fascist Oppressors and Vote Kamala

You won't like the treatment.

In the waning days of the 2024 campaign, there’s a lot of buzz about the liberal celebrities who are joining Vice President Kamala Harris at her Democratic rallies. Thanks to the outsized role that “the media” — that’s the news media, entertainment media, and social media — play in our national discourse, the vacuous and vulgar pronouncements of left-wing celebrities are widely promoted as if they were actually important contributions to the political dialogue. For the last eight years, both onscreen and online, America’s celebrities have focused their venomous and vile tirades against GOP nominee and former President Donald Trump. These attention-getting screeds are widely shared on social media and replayed on news programs, almost as an in-kind contribution to Trump’s Democratic opponents. They can be quite nasty. “The Klan won last night,” screenwriter Aaron Sorkin fulminated after Trump’s 2016 victory. “White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons.” Six months later, CBS Late Night host Stephen Colbert denounced Trump in a nasty monologue: “Sir, you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine. You have more people marching against you than cancer....The only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c**k holster.” “This is the most despicable man to ever inhabit the Oval Office,” actor Jason Alexander tweeted in 2020. “The guy is a total monster...He’s such a mean, nasty, hateful person,” actor Robert DeNiro snarled during an appearance on HBO’s Real Time earlier this year. And, just one day after Trump was grazed by a bullet in a July assassination attempt, musician Kyle Gass offered this onstage birthday wish: “Don’t miss Trump next time.” For eight years, the culture has been saturated with quotes such as these, few of which have been condemned or criticized as outside the bounds of normal discourse. From the NewsBusters’ archives, here are 24 of the worst celebrity quotes about Donald Trump from the past eight years [WARNING, extremely foul language ahead]: ■ “It’s just beyond my comprehension how anybody could support a racist misogynist moron like Donald Trump. It’s beyond my comprehension. I mean, he’s a bad guy, you know? He’s a really bad guy....There’s something wrong with him. I don’t know what a shrink would diagnose what he is, but he’s not a normal person. There’s something mentally wrong with him...He’s just vile....Oh, my God. I honestly think it would be a really dark day in American history if he were to be elected. A really dark day.”— CSI actress Marg Helgenberger in an interview with local Washington D.C. newspaper Metro Weekly, October 20, 2016. ■ “The Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons....Hate was given hope. Abject dumbness was glamorized as being ‘the fresh voice of an outsider’ who’s going to ‘shake things up.’”— Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin in a November 9, 2016 Vanity Fair article “Read the Letter Aaron Sorkin Wrote His Daughter After Donald Trump Was Elected President.” ■ “I am a nasty woman. I am not as nasty as a man who looks like he bathes in Cheeto dust, who’s words are a death trap to America, Electoral College-sanctioned hate speech contaminating this National Anthem....I am not as nasty as a swastika painted on a pride flag and I didn’t know devils could be resurrected, but I feel Hitler in these streets. A mustache traded for a toupee. Nazis renamed as the cabinet....I’m not nasty like the combo of Trump and Pence being served up to me in my voting booth.”— Actress Ashley Judd at the Women’s March as aired on C-SPAN, January 21, 2017. ■ “He’s [Trump] just a gross, crook, dirty rotten, lying sack of [censored]....It’s not a political position. It’s just when you look at somebody and say that guy is a lying sack of [censored]. It’s just simple. That’s what the guy is.”— Comedian Louis C.K. on CBS’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert, April 3, 2017. ■ “Mr. Trump, your presidency, I love your presidency. I call it, it ‘Disgrace the Nation.’ You are not the POTUS, you’re the BLOTUS (Biggest Liar of the United States), you are the glutton with the button. You are a regular ‘Gorge Washington.’ You are the Presi-dunce, but are turning into a real prick-tator. Sir, you attract more skinheads than free Rogaine. You have more people marching against you than cancer. You talk like a sign language gorilla who got hit in the head. In fact the only thing your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c**k [bleep] holster.”— Host Stephen Colbert on CBS’s The Late Show, May 1, 2017. ■ “Donald trump is killing this country. Some of it quickly, some slowly, but he spoils and destroys everything he touches. He emboldens monsters, wielding guns, governmental power, or just smug doublespeak. Or Russia. My hate and sadness are exhausting. Die, Don. Just quietly die.”— April 3, 2018 tweet by director Joss Whedon. ■ Jay-Z: “He’s [Donald Trump] bringing out an ugly side of America that we wanted to believe was gone. And it’s still here and we still gotta deal with it. We have to have the conversation. We have to have tough conversation. We have to talk about the ‘N’ word. And we have to talk about why white men are so privileged in this country.”Host David Letterman: “I completely agree.... And I’ve said this a thousand times. We don’t need any more evidence....Is he a racist, is he not a racist? I’m telling you, you’re having a debate over whether a guy is a racist, chances are that guy is a racist....The humanity that this country has to represent has been refueled by this dumbass.”— Netflix’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, released in April 2018. ■ “WE SHOULD RIP BARRON TRUMP FROM HIS MOTHER’S ARMS AND PUT HIM IN A CAGE WITH PEDOPHILES AND SEE IF MOTHER WILL WILL STAND UP AGAINST THE GIANT ASSHOLE SHE IS MARRIED TO. 90 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE STREETS ON THE SAME WEEKEND IN THE COUNTRY. FUCK”— June 20, 2018 tweet from actor/director Peter Fonda. ■ “He’s a Nazi. He wants no judicial process. He kidnapped children and commits acts of violence for political gain and to support his racist views. He admires violent dictators. Trump is a Nazi. The debate is over. Soon we will have proof he is a Nazi supported by the Russians.”— June 25, 2018 tweet by director Judd Apatow. ■ “This is nascent fascism. We always had a turnkey totalitarian state — all we needed was an excuse and all the institutions were in place to turn this into pure fascism. If we don’t stop [President Trump] now, we will have a revolution for real. Then there will be blood in the streets.”— Actor James Cromwell in an October 29, 2018 Variety article. ■ “I’m happy to stand with Samantha Bee tonight to support the First Amendment, the right of the President to be a relentless and unrepentant lying scumbag, the right of his supporters to not give a shit, and our right to do something about it....Impeachment or not, there will be an election. Unless Mitch McConnell can figure out a way to stop that vote, too.”— Actor Robert De Niro at TBS’s Samantha Bee’s Not The White House Correspondents Dinner, April 27, 2019. ■ “Impeachment would be just the beginning of what he deserves, you know, not even scratching the surface of what he deserves....I think we should turn him over to the Saudis, you know, his buddies. The same Saudis, you know, who got rid of that reporter [Jamal Khashoggi]. You know, maybe they could do the same for him.”— Author Fran Lebowitz on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, May 17, 2019. ■ “I was sure that Trump was going to get elected the day he announced, and I said that he’s going to be like Hitler, and Mexicans are going to be the new Jews. And sure enough, that’s what he delivered.”— Singer Linda Ronstadt comparing today in America under Trump to Nazi Germany, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, December 30, 2019. ■ “We’re living here in a fool’s hell. The United States of America is not a fool’s paradise; it’s a fool’s hell....Donald Trump is somewhere down here, floundering around in the muddy water at the bottom of the oligarchic pool. This is a man who has failed at fucking everything in his life except becoming the biggest tyrant and mass murderer and mass destroyer of everything that any of us might love or cherish in the whole [world], only because he has the power.”— Former Pink Floyd band member Roger Waters in a February 12, 2020 interview with Rolling Stone magazine. ■ “This is the most despicable man to ever inhabit the Oval Office. Thousands will die needlessly for his arrogance and incompetence. And if this doesn’t prove it to you, nothing will. We must remove this horror from power asap.”— April 2, 2020 tweet by Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander. ■ Howard Stern: “I would love it if Donald would get on TV and take an injection of Clorox and let’s see if his theory works. Hold a big rally, say fuck this coronavirus, with all of his followers, and let them hug each other and kiss each other and have a big rally.”Sidekick Robin Quivers: “A big cocktail of disinfectant.”Stern: “Yeah, and all take disinfectant and all drop dead.”— Exchange on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show, April 27, 2020. ■ “A racist President doesn’t care that Black Americans die at the hands of racist cops. An incompetent idiotic President turns his back as hundreds of thousands die of a deadly virus. On Nov. 3 we have a choice: Life or Death.”— June 11, 2020 tweet by film director Rob Reiner. ■ “You lost, you miserable self-entitled fucker. Concede and get the hell out.”— November 8, 2020 tweet by author Stephen King. ■ “This president Agent Orange will go down in history with the likes of Hitler.”— Film director Spike Lee in a pre-recorded acceptance speech at the New York Films Critics Circle Awards, January 24, 2021. ■ “The guy [Donald Trump] is a total monster….He’s such a mean, nasty, hateful person. I’d never play him as an actor because I can’t see any good in him…If he wins the election, you [Bill Maher] won’t be on this show anymore, he’ll come looking for me. They’ll be things that happened that none of us can imagine. That’s what happens in that kind of a dictatorship which is what he says, let’s believe him, take him at his word.”— Actor Robert DeNiro on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, March 8, 2024. ■ “If that man [Donald Trump] gets in, as soon as he takes the oath, he will have generals walk down the steps of the Capitol….He will take a hammer and break the glass where the Constitution is, and he will tear it up in our faces and say, ‘Now I’m the king of the fucking world. You will bow down, bitches.’ He will punish everybody that didn’t vote for him….This motherfucker is Hitler. He didn’t come to play….That motherfucker will have us in camps.”— ABC’s Black-ish actress Jenifer Lewis on the Sirius/XM radio show Mornings with Zerlina, April 4, 2024. ■ “This is a fucking war. This is a war now, and we are fighting for our fucking country. And these assholes are gonna take it away....Take him out, Joe. If he was Hitler, and this was 1940, you’d take him out. Well, he is Hitler. And this is 1940. Take him the fuck out! Blow him up, or they’ll blow us up. Facts.”— Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black actress Lea DeLaria in July 1, 2024 Instagram post. ■ “Project 2025 is the GOP’s version of Mein Kampf. The difference is Mein Kampf is only 700 pages. Project 2025 is 900 pages, wants to control all of our lives….If Trump wins, we’re doing this show in a camp somewhere….[This election] is Trump versus democracy. It’s Trump versus freedom….It’s Trump versus us having a right to decide our future or Donald Trump and his minions in Project 2025.”— Comedian Dean Obeidallah on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, July 2, 2024. ■ Actor/musician Jack Black: “Make a wish!”...Actor/musician Kyle Gass, before blowing out birthday cake candles: “Don’t miss Trump next time.”— On stage exchange between Jack Black and Kyle Gass at their band Tenacious D’s July 14, 2024 performance in Sydney, Australia, just one day after a gunman shot Trump and three others at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.                          

Life feels heavy. We’re seeing wars break out, hurricanes wreak havoc, violent crimes being committed against children, election insanity, perversion at every corner, and what feels like constant "bad news" with morally bankrupt people doing morally bankrupt things. It's exhausting, and I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. Every day it seems like we're living more and more in Babylonian times, but this isn’t the first time in history it’s been this way. 'I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told.' Tucked in with the other "minor prophets" in the Bible is the book of Habakkuk. We're not given much information about Habakkuk, but we know he was an atypical prophet who many believe wrote his book after the fall of Nineveh and before the Babylonian capture of Jerusalem. Habakkuk differentiates himself from other prophets since there's no indication that God asked him to be prophet. Rather, he seems to seek the role out. At this point in history, it was morally dark, especially for those pursuing righteousness and speaking truth like Habakkuk. Strife and contention ruled the land, justice wasn't served, and "destruction and violence" were ever before Habakkuk and God's people. In this short three-chapter book, Habakkuk finds himself discouraged and weary. He struggles with having faith in God while grappling with all the injustice in the world. He cries out to God for help, questioning why God isn't saving the people from grave evil. Everything he's ever known is being destroyed and overtaken by pagans. But we have to remember: God had been faithful time and time again even though His people had been continually unfaithful to Him. The rise of the Babylonian empire and the destruction of Jerusalem were a direct punishment for the sin of God's people. God responds to Habakkuk's cry by inviting him to "look" and "see" among the nations and be astounded. God then tells Habakkuk He's raising up the Chaldeans, the ruling class of the Neo-Babylonian empire — a gruesome people who viewed their "might" as their god. They placed their confidence wholly in their strength and their strength alone. It seems odd for this to be God's response to the distressed prophet, but God doesn't sugarcoat the situation. God says, "I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told" (Habakkuk 1:5). Here, God is inviting Habakkuk to trust Him even though Habakkuk doesn't understand why the Babylonians continue plundering his homeland, though God assures him that eventually the Babylonians will "sweep by like the wind" (Habakkuk 1:11). In spite of God's challenge for Habakkuk to wait and trust Him, he is still depressed, so he returns to the Lord a second time. He ends his plea asking the Lord if "mercilessly killing nations" will continue. This time, after laying out his raw plea to God, similarly to a Psalm of David, Habakkuk stands at his watch post, stationing himself on the tower. We don’t know how long he waits, but we know God answers him. God doesn't always let us in on what He's doing or why He's doing it. Instead of telling Habakkuk to observe, God calls him to take action. The Lord directs him to write down the "vision," which was God’s original response to Habakkuk's first plea: "Write the vision; make it plain on tablets" (Habakkuk 2:2). Since the weary prophet didn't heed God's message the first time, God tells him to inscribe it. By doing this, God's message can more concretely sink into his heart and mind, where it can be more fully imprinted. There will be an appointed time when the Babylonians are punished, but that appointed time is not yet. "If it seems slow, wait for it," God urges Habakkuk in 2:3. The Lord makes it clear that His timing is everything and His plans are unfolding even if Habakkuk doesn't understand God’s intended purpose or the timing of it. "The righteous shall live by his faith," the Lord gently reminds him in 2:4. During a time of justice being perverted and evil abounding, God wasn't absent even though Habakkuk felt like He was. Time and time again we ask God "why" and we find ourselves doubting His goodness when we see so much evil around us, as Habakkuk did so many years ago. God doesn't always let us in on what He's doing or why He's doing it. Sometimes it might be because it's too heavy a load for us if we knew all the details or could peek into the future. But with goodness and kindness, God listened, responded, and reminded Habakkuk of His unchangeable character. God is doing the same for us in our day and our culture. Even though the world feels like it is caving in on us and things seem bleak as our world embraces moral relativism — people doing what is right in their own eyes — we know God is in control and reigns on His throne. Though his circumstances are grim and his homeland is desolate, Habakkuk orients his heart toward hope and truth. After the back-and-forth dialogue, Habakkuk concludes by praying. He positions his heart toward God in an act of worship, giving praise to the Lord. His circumstances have not changed, but his perspective completely shifts. Even though the fig trees don't blossom and there's no fruit on the vines or herd in the stalls, Habakkuk says, "Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation" (Habakkuk 3:18). The Lord is His strength while his enemies make an idol out of their own strength. Habakkuk is reminding himself of God's character, strength, and infinite power. His confession of faith draws him to pronounce, "He [God] makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places" (Habakkuk 3:19). Here, when Habakkuk refers to a "deer," he uses a Hebrew word that means "female deer" or "hind." These graceful, sure-footed animals are more lightly built than male deer, making them more agile. They are revered for their stability in climbing mountains, cliffs, and rocky terrain without falling. A hind won't tread on anything that's not secure and steady under her feet. Just as the female deer is confident in her movement through rugged topography, so are we to be confident through life's uncertain adversity. What a powerful picture of Habakkuk's inner strength rooted in God. Though his circumstances are grim and his homeland is desolate, Habakkuk orients his heart toward hope and truth. He went from deeply discouraged to rejoicing in the Lord. Nothing changed except his perspective. Habakkuk went from looking at his circumstances to beholding God — and that made all the difference. Just as the hind climbs up steep cliffs without losing her footing, God gives us the same ability to navigate the rough terrain of life and the hardships that often feel unbearably heavy. His strength, not ours. I find myself feeling like Habakkuk did centuries ago. Our current situation may not be as dire as Jerusalem's under siege, but we nonetheless see enough challenges in our day to relate to Habakkuk’s state of despondency. Living in a godless society where our moral fabric continues to unravel rapidly feels wearisome, but we can learn a powerful lesson from this prophet of old: Confidently, we can trust in God, who reigns supreme over all.

Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred has probably been the most fun I’ve had so far with Blizzard’s newest RPG, a game I already enjoyed a lot. But at this point I’ve done just about everything, save for grinding out those last few paragon levels and looking for perfect rolls, and Path of Exile 2 still hasn’t arrived. Fortunately, the team at Project Diablo 2 is here to help, with the launch of its tenth season for the revamped, modernized version of one of the best PC games of all time. Continue reading Project Diablo 2’s new season is the perfect dessert after D4 Vessel of Hatred MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best games like Diablo, Best RPG games