Daily Devotional

Life is really uneven. Six years after my salvation, I was called to pastor a small church. While there were ups and downs, it was mostly a marvelous experience, high and holy! But by 15 years later it had started to become a depressing place to me. The holy calling remained. The jewel that is God’s church continued to thrive in its planted place. But in that next year I was not thriving.

This led to change. Going a back to school part-time for six years. Working in a public school system again, for over eight years. Then the call came to leave the school system, and take up a pastoral role again. It was a blessing and a wonder and a challenge. More ups and downs and changes followed, even right up to this day at Campus Bible Church.

Where do we possibly find a constant? If it is not circumstantial, where is it? Is there such a place as constant in Christ?

Habakkuk lived in times which were not constant. His nation was on the verge of judgment and exile. He seemed depressed and distressed a lot. But by the end of the book he reports his conclusion to such a shifting sands world. He declares how we are to be constant. He writes a “Though…yet” declaration. You have read it.

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
Habakkuk 3:17–18, ESV

One of the key lay leaders back at Clovis Hills used to make a distinction between regular decisions and “policy” decisions. Regular decisions involve more or less a decision for one time, “I will go to the store.” A policy decision is one that is continuous. It guides every time certain circumstances are encountered, always the same, “I never pay cash for anything.”

Habakkuk made a policy decision. Though all the natural provisions for life should fail, “I will rejoice in the Lord: I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” Good times, mediocre and bad times would all lead to the same thing for him—rejoicing and taking joy in his Lord!

Then he goes further.
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer's;
he makes me tread on my high places.
Habakkuk 3:19, ESV

He also predetermined that “God the Lord, is my strength.” He acknowledges his on-going weakness, his inability to face everything that comes his way. That he might draw on God’s strength!

Then he declares his constant. He had high places. Places unreachable by the world. Places no mere mortal can ever go. But God had prepared his “feet” that he could go there any time; all the time.

We are all called to our high places. We have been given “feet” to go there. We go, in the good times, in the mundane times and in the desperate times.

The one constant in our unstable world is to live in our high places with the Lord. He makes us tread there! We must only pay attention, and set our sights there. To that place we can always arrive. There we find our unique communion with the Lord. We find life, joy and strength. We find the way to be victorious, to be fruitful, to love and to serve. To recover. To take growth steps.

Our constant call is to walk on our high places. Our “feet” are prepared by the Lord. When we arrive there on a day, He is always there. And the world is not.

Read: 2 Peter 1, Habakkuk 3
Sing: God Leads Us Along, by G. A. Young

"English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers."