Daily Manna · Day 203 · July 22
Feet Like Hinds
“The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.”
You are on a climb with no railing, and you have stopped looking down on purpose.
Here is the scene the song ends. Habakkuk has spent three chapters arguing with God about violence going unpunished, and been told the answer is Babylon, which is worse than the question. He has stood on his watchtower and waited. And two verses before yours is an inventory of everything gone: although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. That is not a difficult quarter. That is the entire economy of an agricultural country, item by item, failed. Nothing has improved by the time he sings.
Then: The LORD God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. The animal is a mountain deer, and the remarkable thing about its feet is not speed, it is placement. A hind does not fly over the cliff. It walks the cliff, one hoof set at a time, on ground that would kill anything less certain. And high places in the Old Testament are usually exposed ground, contested ground, not a viewpoint.
So take the promise exactly as wide as it is written. God gives the footing, not a way around the rock face. You will still be climbing tomorrow. What changes is what your feet are made of, and there is only one place that can be proved, which is on the climb.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 203 is Into Darkness (Psalm 88:18).