Hope From Habakkuk

 I sincerely try to practice the spiritual discipline of reading my Bible daily. That is the sort of statement you expect a pastor to make.  What you might not anticipate is the admission that I do not always achieve that worthy goal.  Typically, I will try to “catch up” to where I feel like I should be in my reading plan, and that might mean reading several chapters at one sitting.  This morning I was in “catch up” mode, and after reading the pastoral epistles and about a third of Matthew, I turned to Habakkuk.

Maybe you are the sort of person that can read for a long time and get as much out the last few minutes as you do the first; if so don’t tell the rest of us!  Still, I was determined, and Habakkuk was this morning’s last book to tackle so I forged ahead.  I have mentioned in other posts that I am often surprised at what the Lord says to me through His word.  As I came to the close of the book, there was an application that jumped out at me.  In Habakkuk 3:16a, the prophet is describing being overwhelmed and says, “I hear, and my body trembles, my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones, my steps totter beneath me.”  It was the last phrase that grabbed my attention, “My steps totter beneath me.”  I can relate.

For some time now I have been fighting a losing battle with my balance.  Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD) is characterized as a “gait disorder.”  One of the things that I learned to expect from neurologists is an examination of how I walk.  There are just things that people with brain disorders don’t do the way everyone else does. In fact, the trained eye can pick up on details of how the patient walks and guess not only what is wrong but how far along in their disease they are.  

I once went to a neurologist at Vanderbilt who had me walk back and forth down the hall.  Apparently not satisfied with his own analysis, he then called in another neurologist to discuss my gait.  Maybe I’m a bit odd to think this, but I suddenly felt like a model on the runway at a fashion show!  It’s hard not to be self-conscious when almost every step is being scrutinized and the doctor repeats, “Just walk the way you naturally do.”

This battle with balance has meant a progression of adaptations to keep me upright.  I have moved from a cane, to a cane andmy dear wife’s arm, to a walker, and I am doing everything I can to avoid the next logical step, a wheelchair.  It is encouraging to me to know that not all CBD patients end up in a wheelchair, but many do.  I want to be part of the standing minority until I lie down for the last time.  

To that end I have looked for ways to keep my spirits upright as well.  I would be less than honest if I said I have never given in to depression.  Now, I don’t mean clinical depression, just a sense that there is no hope.  It is at times like that when the Lord has opened my eyes to see things like the last few verses of Habakkuk.  I have already mentioned that the prophet writes of his steps tottering beneath him, but that just serves to set up the contrast in verses 18 and 19.  The Scripture reads, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.  God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like hinds’ feet, he makes me tread upon my high places.”  Habakkuk lived in difficult times, in many ways far worse than anything I am facing. Still, he could move from speaking of “tottering steps” to being as sure footed as a mountain goat, and all in the space of three verses!  I think the key to Habakkuk’s stability is found in the first phrase of verse 19, “God, the Lord, is my strength.”  The lesson I take from all of this is that I may well grow weaker, but the Almighty never will.  I will undoubtedly lose more and more of my equilibrium, but God is not just as stable as a rock, He is the Rock.  What I have to do is lean on Him.  Just as He gave stability to Habakkuk, He will give it to me.