The 18th psalm, which is closely parallel, as I have remarked, with this
one, gives a somewhat different and inferior version of that thought
when it says, 'It is the Lord that girdeth me with strength.' But
Habakkuk, though perhaps he could not have put into dogmatic shape all
that he meant, had come farther than that with this: 'The Lord is my
strength.' He not only _gives_, as one might put a coin into the hand of
a beggar, while standing separate from him all the while, but 'He is my
strength.'
And what does that mean? It is an anticipation of that most wonderful
and highest of all the New Testament truths which the Apostle declared
when he said: 'I can do all things in Christ which strengtheneth me
within.' It is the anticipation in experience--which always comes before
dogmatic formulas that reduce experiences into articulate utterances, of
what the Apostle recorded when he said that he had heard the voice that
declared, 'My grace is sufficient for thee, and My strength is made
perfect in weakness.'
Ah, brother! do not let us deprive ourselves of the lofty consolations
and the mysterious influx of power which may be ours, if we will open
our eyes to see, and our hearts to receive, what is really the central
blessing of the Gospel, the communication through the same faith as
Habakkuk exercised when he said, 'I will rejoice in the God of my
salvation,' of an actual divine strength to dwell in and manifest itself
majestically and triumphantly through, our weakness. 'The Lord is my
strength,' and if we will rejoice in the Lord we shall find that
Habakkuk's experience was lower than ours, inasmuch as he knew less of
God than we do; and we shall be able to surpass his saying with the
other one of the Prophet: 'The Lord is my strength and song; He also is
become my salvation.' That is the first blessing that this ancient
believer, out of the twilight of early revelation, felt as certain to
come through communion with God.
II. The second is like unto it. Such rejoicing communion with God will
give light-footedness in the path of life.
'He makes my feet like hinds' feet.' The stag is, in all languages
spoken by people that have ever seen it, the very type and emblem of
elastic, springing ease, of light and bounding gracefulness, that clears
every obstacle, and sweeps swiftly over the moor. And when this singer,
or his brother psalmist in the other psalm that we have referred to,
says, 'Thou makest my feet like hinds' feet,' what he is thinking about
is that light and easy, springing, elastic gait, that swiftness of
advance. What a contrast that is to the way in which most of us get
through our day's work! Plod, plod, plod, in a heavy-footed, spiritless
grind, like that with which the ploughman toils down the sticky furrows
of a field, with a pound of clay at each heel; or like that with which a
man goes wearied home from his work at night. The monotony of trivial,
constantly recurring doings, the fluctuations in the thermometer of our
own spirits; the stiff bits of road that we have all to encounter sooner
or later; and as days go on, our diminishing buoyancy of nature, and the
love of walking a little slower than we used to do; we all know these
things, and our gait is affected by them. But then my text brings a
bright assurance, that swift and easy and springing as the course of a
stag on a free hill-side may be the gait with which we run the race set
before us.
It is the same thought, under a somewhat different garb, which the
Apostle has when he tells us that the Christian soldier ought to have
his 'feet shod with the alacrity that comes from the gospel of peace.'
We are to be always ready to run, and to run with light hearts when we
do. That is a possible result of Christian communion, and ought, far
more than it is, to be an achieved reality with each of us. Of course
physical conditions vary. Of course our spirits go up and down. Of
course the work that we have to do one day seems easier than the same
work does another. All these fluctuations and variations, and causes of
heavy-footedness--and sometimes more sinful ones, causes of
sluggishness--will survive; but in spite of them all, and beneath them
all, it is possible that we may have ourselves thus equipped for the
road, and may rejoice in our work 'as a strong man to run a race,' and
may cheerily welcome every duty, and cast ourselves into all our tasks.
It is possible, because communion with God manifest in Christ does, as
we have been seeing, actually breathe into men a vigour, and
consequently a freshness and a buoyancy that do not belong to
themselves, and do not come from nature or from surrounding things.
Unless that is true, that Christianity gives to a man the divine
gladness which makes him ready for work, I do not know what is the good
of his Christianity to him.
But not only is that so, but this same communion with God, which is the
opening of the heart for the influx of the divine power, brings to bear
upon all our work new motives which redeem it from being oppressive,
tedious, monotonous, trivial, too great for our endurance, or too little
for our effort. All work that is not done in fellowship with Jesus
Christ tends to become either too heavy to be tackled successfully, or
too trivial to demand our best energies, and in either case will be done
perfunctorily, and as the days go on, mechanically and wearisomely, as a
grind and a pled. 'Thou makest my feet like hinds' feet'--if I get the
new motive of love to God in Christ well into my heart so that it comes
out and influences all my actions, there will be no more tasks too
formidable to undertake, or too small to be worth an effort. There will
be nothing unwelcome. The rough places will be made plain, and the
crooked things straight, and our feet will be shod with the preparedness
of the gospel of peace.
If we live in daily communion with God, another thought, too, will come
in, which will, in like manner, make us ready 'to run with' cheerfulness
'the race that is set before us.' We shall connect everything that
befalls us, and everything that we have to do, with the final issue, and
life will become solemn, grave, and blessed, because it is the outer
court and vestibule of the eternal life with God in Christ. They that
hold communion with Him, and only they, will, as another prophet says,
'run and not be weary,' when there come the moments that require a
special effort; and 'will walk and not faint' through the else
tediously long hours of commonplace duty and dusty road.
III. The last of the thoughts here is--Communion with God brings
elevation.
'He will make me to walk upon my high places.' One sees the herd on the
skyline of the mountain ridge, and at home up there, far above dangers
and attack; able to keep their footing on cliff and precipice, and
tossing their antlers in the pure air. One wave of the hand, and they
are miles away. 'He sets me upon my high places'; if we will keep
ourselves in simple, loving fellowship with God in Christ; and day by
day, even when 'the fig-tree does not blossom, and there is no fruit in
the vine,' will still 'rejoice in the God of our salvation,' He will
lift us up, and Isaiah's other clause in the verse which I have quoted
will be fulfilled: 'They shall mount up with wings as eagles.' Communion
with God does not only help us to plod and to travel, but it helps us to
soar. If we keep ourselves in touch with Him, we shall be like a weight
that is hung on to a balloon. The buoyancy of the one will lift the
leadenness of the other. If we hold fast by Christ's hand that will lift
us up to the high places, the heights of God, in so far as we may reach
them in this world; and we shall be at home up there. They will be '_my_
high places,' that I never could have got at by my own scrambling, but
to which Thou hast lifted me up, and which, by Thy grace, have become my
natural abode. I am at home there, and walk at liberty in the loftiness,
and fear no fall amongst the cliffs.
Are you and I familiar with these upper ranges of thought and experience
and life? Do we feel at home there more than down in the bottoms,
amongst the swamps, and the miasma, and the mists? Where is your home,
brother? The Mass begins with _Sursum corda_: 'Up with your hearts,' and
that is the word for us. But the way to get up is to keep ourselves in
touch with Jesus Christ, and then He will, even whilst our feet are
travelling along this road of earth, set us at His own right hand in the
heavenly places, and make them '_our_ high places.' It is safe up there.
The air is pure; the poison mists are down lower; the hunters do not
come there; their arrows or their rifles will not carry so far. It is
only when the herd ventures a little down the hill that it is in danger
from shots.
But the elevation will not be such as to make us despise the low paths
on which duty--the sufficient and loftiest thing of all--lies for us.
Our souls may be like stars, and dwell apart, and yet may lay the
humblest duties upon themselves, and whilst we live in the high places,
we 'may travel on life's common way in cheerful godliness.' Communion
with Him will make us light-footed, and lift us high, and yet it will
keep us at desk, and mill, and study, and kitchen, and nursery, and
shop, and we shall find that the high places are reachable in every
life, and in every task. So we may go on until at last we shall hear the
Voice that says, 'Come up higher,' and shall he lifted to the mountain
of God, where the living waters are, and shall fear no snares or hunters
any more for ever.
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