“Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.”
Habakkuk 3:18-19
To rejoice means to feel or show great joy or delight in something or someone. Isn’t that just the perfect way to describe how we should feel about God? After all, great joy and great delight are a natural byproduct of being close to Him, which is precisely where He wants us to be so that He can be our strength and our hope.
But what about when we’re afraid?
Or when things aren’t going all that well and it seems like everything around us is working against us? Or what about when things just feel totally out of control? It can be a lot harder to rejoice in those places. But those are exactly the times when we must lay down our worries and our fears, and choose to trust Him anyway.
In our abandoned trust, there is real joy waiting to be found.
There is a fantastic book called Hinds’ Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, which is an allegory about the yearning of God’s children to be led to new heights. In it, the reader follows the main character Much-Afraid on her spiritual journey as she faces dangers and reaches new, high places. One quote from the book that stood out to me was this:
“The look the Shepherd turned on her was very beautiful. “Nothing my Father and I have made is ever wasted,” he said quietly, “and the little wild flowers have a wonderful lesson to teach. They offer themselves so sweetly and confidently and willingly, even if it seems that there is no one to appreciate them. Just as though they sang a joyous little song to themselves, that it is so happy to love…”
Rejoicing always, especially when it’s hard or when things don’t make sense; that is what it looks like to live out of faith. No situation, circumstance, or season is ever wasted when God is at the helm.
In Habakkuk 3:19, it says that He “makes my feet like the deer’s; He makes me tread on my high places.” I just love that in many versions of the Bible the high places described are unique to each person. They are not the high places, but my high places. And my high places are probably a little — or maybe even a lot — different than yours. Isn’t that beautiful?
To think that our God created each of us for a different journey with unique heights to reach kind of blows my mind, and truly brings some serious joy to my heart.
I can have joy because I know that He made each of us for and wants to lead us to our high places.
Here is the thing: true, perfect, and everlasting joy came on a night when no one could have expected it: the night that Jesus was born.
As fully man and fully God, He came into a world that was desperate for what Him, even though they may not have known it at the time. He came to bring hope, joy, and life abundant for those who would choose to follow Him. So as you and I remember that special day when our sweet Savior was born, may we slow down to adore and delight in His presence, and may we remember that the greatest gift we would ever receive came that quiet night in Bethlehem.
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