Yet I Will Rejoice
Scripture
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
Habakkuk 3:17–18 · · ESV
Clyde is a farming community where many families have relied on crops and cattle for generations. Growing up on a farm, we experienced abundant years and lean years. Crops flourished in some seasons and struggled in others.
But we never faced the complete devastation Habakkuk describes. This was more than a difficult harvest.
Everything the people depended upon for food and livelihood was gone. In an ancient society where the families counted on agriculture, losing all of their fruit and crops and livestock would mean financial ruin and severe famine leading to poverty and death.
And still Habakkuk says, “Yet I will rejoice.”
I wonder if I would respond the same way.
It can be difficult to rejoice when times are tough, when someone is sick, when bills pile up or we face trouble.
Habakkuk could rejoice because his confidence was not in the fields, the vines, the sheep, or the cattle. His confidence was in God.
Habakkuk continues in verse 19:
“God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet feet like the deer’s;
he makes me tread on my high places.”
God does not make the mountain level or make the path easy. God gives the deer the sure footing it needs for the next step.
Having faith doesn’t mean God will remove every hardship from our path.
Sometimes He changes the circumstances.
Sometimes He carries us through them.
God was worthy of Habakkuk’s praise in seasons of abundance. And he was still worthy when the fields were empty.
And He is the same God we can trust today.
When trouble comes, I want to remember Habakkuk’s small but powerful words:
Yet I will rejoice.
Not because everything is good.
But because God still is.
Prayer
Amelia