Habakkuk 3:19: “The Sovereign Lord is my source of strength. He gives me the agility of a deer; He enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain.”

This is a confession from the prophet: “God is the source of my strength. God is the One who gives me the ability.” We can go to the words of Paul, where Jesus Christ told him, “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9). And in another place Paul says, “I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

So we are setting our eyes on God as the source of strength. We are setting our eyes on God as the One who enables us. The children of Israel were told not to forget that it is God who gives them the power to get wealth, who gives them strength, who gives them ability (Deuteronomy 8:18). This is a voice of acknowledgment. Acknowledge God. That is what this prophet is doing.

“I am able to navigate difficult terrain because God gives me strength. On my own, it would not have happened, but God is the One who gives me strength.” He uses the picture of the deer. You look at the deer and say, “I cannot do what that deer is doing—that deer that will not slip.” You see the slippery, mountainous areas where a human being would struggle to move, and he is able to navigate them.

Look at yourself too. We have been told that each of us has received grace—that we have been given gifts from God. So what you can do, someone else may not be able to do in the same way, because you have been uniquely graced. You have been uniquely enabled to execute in that way, to carry out that assignment, to keep moving in spite of opposition.

Do you need strength if there is no opposition? No. That is why people who go into space, where there is no opposition from gravity, suffer physically. Human beings have been constructed to pull against gravity. You are not even aware of it, but your muscles are constantly contracting as gravity exerts itself against you, and yet you move in that environment.

Even at that level, you have already been enabled. You have been created with strength at that level, to wade through the opposition gravity brings. Paul complained and asked God to take away the thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan which buffeted him. He said he pleaded three times that it might leave him. And God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:7–9).

I do not know that area where you think you are disadvantaged. God’s grace is the difference‑maker.

God bless you. See you later.