It’s an interesting comparison that the prophet Habakkuk makes in Habakkuk 3:19; he says that God gives us strength and makes us surefooted as a deer. The King James Version says it this way:
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.
Habakkuk 3:19 KJV
What is a hind?
A hind is actually a female red deer. I did a little digging this week to better understand this verse. Here’s what I found out. A hind won’t step on anything that is not sure and steady under its feet. What’s so interesting is that she will place her back feet exactly in the same place her front feet went. She is exactly sure footed, not off by an inch. Because of these two abilities, she is able to scale mountains and rocks without any fear of falling. It’s no wonder God told Habakkuk to use a deer as an example of sure footedness.
I haven’t seen too many deer up high in the mountains, but I have seen goats and mountain sheep high on the tops of mountains. It’s amazing to watch them. They are so sure footed, even on the side of a mountain. It’s the most amazing sight! Below are a few pictures I took from the road of big horn sheep climbing the mountains in Colorado.
They are so fearless as they traverse up and down the sides of mountains.
What does living like this look like?
When I see a picture like this with this verse in mind, it helps me to understand more clearly how God wants me to live my life. He wants me to so trust in him and in his goodness that I can literally bound around even dangerous places and not feel an ounce of fear because I know “God’s got this.”
I’m not sure how close to bounding you are right now. You may be the furthest thing away from that, and that’s okay. It just gives us a picture of how God created us and wants us to live. It gives us something to strive towards.
How do we live this way?
How do we live this way? What’s the secret? The secret lies in the preceding verses:
Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,
Habakkuk 3:17,18
and there are no grapes on the vines;
even though the olive crop fails,
and the fields lie empty and barren;
even though the flocks die in the fields,
and the cattle barns are empty,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord!
I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
If we want the surefooted confidence of a hind, we have to hand over the control of our lives to God and choose to rejoice no matter what comes our way. We can not control the circumstances in our lives, but we can control our response to those circumstances. And the response every time, according to these verses is supposed to be joy. It’s a choice. A choice to choose joy and to be as surefooted as the deer as we make our way through this life, or a choice to choose despair and frustration and find ourselves doubting, questioning, and stumbling on our difficult journey.
What does it mean to choose joy?
These verses are some of the most encouraging yet challenging verses in the Bible. How do we choose joy when life is so hard at times? I think we have to remember that joy doesn’t mean “happy” necessarily. It doesn’t mean we slap a smile on our faces when our world has just fallen apart.
It simply means that in the midst of the heartbreak, we choose to acknowledge that God is still good. That’s where our joy comes from. It comes from this deep place in side of us that goes deeper than simply “happiness.” It’s a deep understanding that I choose to still trust God and not let my circumstances determine my response.
So the next time you see a deer, stop for a moment and just watch it bound effortlessly away and remember these verses and let it remind you to choose joy every time.
More Encouragement
For more encouragement, check out my post Enjoy the Stage of Life You’re In.
I would be remiss to not mention a popular older book called Hind’s Feet in High Places that gets its name from these verses.
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