Dave's Diary

For some reason, I mixed up my own reading plan and merrily skipped over the reading I’d set for Tuesday this week. So I’m returning to that today to end off the week. Perhaps there’s some special significance to that timing for someone. I hope so.

Daily Reading: Habakkuk 3:17-19 and James 1:1-18

My childhood memories of these verses from Habakkuk are inextricably linked to the first “Scripture in Song” worship cassette I remember my parents owning. It played endlessly on road trips and the song based on these verses still plays in my mind occasionally. Listen to it here if you like.

¹⁷ Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, 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,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
¹⁹ The Sovereign Lord is my strength!
    He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

What a glorious prophetic resistance song from Habakkuk. It’s an acknowledgment that moments arrive when we simply have to refuse to surrender and to allow our circumstances to determine our spiritual mood. It’s as though the prophet stands on a hillside with his eyes screwed up against the dust carried on a scorching wind, looking out over desolate fields of fruitless fig trees, wilted wheat, and rotting animal carcasses. With his heart breaking and tears slowly wetting his cheeks, he raises his eyes to the heavens. But instead of raising his fists and shouting in despair and anger, Habakkuk opens his hands, spreads his arms wide and high above his head and begins to sing praises to the Lord Most High. As he sings he begins to dance. Every step sends up a puff of dust, but he’s not deterred. Singing and dancing he rejoices in the Lord: “Yahweh, You are my salvation! Yahweh You’re my strength!” Spinning and jumping like deer in springtime, He rages against any darkness of the soul and puts the praises of God on his lips instead.

No matter what we face today, let’s make the same choice Habakkuk made. Let’s sing our own resistance song against the encroaching darkness and let the light of God’s glory in. Amen!