Verse of the Day for June 19

Everything in verse eighteen hangs on its first word. Yet I will rejoice in the LORD. Yet, after what?

After verse seventeen, where Habakkuk lists a complete failure. No blossom on the fig tree, no fruit on the vine, nothing from the fields, the flock gone and the stalls empty. For a farming people, that is the whole economy lost.

And he rejoices. Not in the harvest, which has failed, but in the God of my salvation. What Habakkuk still has is God, and he decides that is enough to sing about.

Then the picture of the deer. he will make my feet like hinds' feet. A hind can stand on narrow rock where other animals would fall. God does not flatten the mountain. He gives Habakkuk the kind of feet that can walk on it. The last line even hands the song To the chief singer, so this was meant to be sung aloud with others, empty barns and all.

Look at what is in your hands today, even if it is small. A little rice in the pot, one friend who still calls, breath in your lungs. Courage begins by rejoicing in the God who is still there, and asking him for feet to match the ground.

Habakkuk's joy did not wait for the harvest to return.

God may not lower the mountain, but he can change your feet.