Thought for the Day 30th January 2021 The Stag and the faith of the faithful

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The FRIGHT

Not so long ago I was walking through thick bracken cover on the brow of a hill flushing out sheep.

It was heavy going and I was taking my time because it would have been very easy to fall.

And all of a sudden a big stag stood up six or eight feet in front of me ... I guessed two hundred kilos of muscle and this thing had horns on its horns!

It was one of those stomach clenching moments as I watched him decide whether he was going to chose fight or flight.

The prophet Habakkuk in our verse for the day was having a stomach clenching moment of his own. His beloved land as getting invaded by a violent foreign army that brought killing with famine and pestilence in its wake.

What was a man of faith to do in such a situation?

It was the sort of time when the reality of a person's faith gets revealed.

Would Habbakuk keep faith with God through the hard times, or wallow as he lost his assurance of faith?

Back to the stag whose slumber I suspended.

Well, obviously, I'm still here so it ended happily!

I'd clearly disturbed the sound sleep the big beast had been having, and he took off with all his ladies appearing and flowing through the bracken behind him.

When he got to the bottom of that hill there was a fence five feet high, and across it a steep bank dropping another six to eight feet onto a sunken little road.

That huge great beast with that hat-rack of horns on his head stopped at the fence looked over his shoulder back at me, and from a standing start leapt the fence effortlessly and was off and away.

You see, Habbakuk's conclusion of the threat he was facing wasn't about the deer's horns but all about its' legs and its feet. Rescuing legs that could be safe on the heights.

It's not about the strength of the horns to defeat what was coming against his people ... that was God's job ... but staying nimble and resilient in the challenge to faith and to life.

The point

The key was that Habakkuk resolved plainly and clearly in his own mind that whatever came along he was sticking with God:

"Though the fig-tree does not bud

    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the sheepfold
    and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Saviour."

Why Habakkuk, why when things are getting so grim?

The takeaway

Ah. Because whatever the challenge He takes care of my ability to rise up and deal with it, as long as I'm sticking with Him. 

Then:

"The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights."

Habakkuk 3:17-19