Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
This is such a beautiful and poetic Scripture we find here in this book, and really it uses nature to paint a picture of what our relationship is like with God. Of course, this illustration is one of a deer.
Grace and Effortlessness
Now, if you've ever seen a deer run in person or on TV, they just have this grace about them. It almost seems like they're floating through the air, and even though this animal can weigh hundreds of pounds, there's this effortlessness, there's this grace that they move with. I love this picture that the scripture is painting—that the Lord wants to make us as surefooted as a deer able to climb up heights.
You see, the Lord wants us to be able to move gracefully throughout life, not in striving, but in dependence on Him. I love that it says the Sovereign Lord is our strength. You see, human strength and godly strength are simply not the same.
The Wrong Boots
It reminds me of a hiking trip that I went on earlier this year with some friends. It was a beautiful day, beautiful scenery. As we came to this mountain, we started to hike up the trails. Of course, there's uneven terrain, there's things in the way, there's bushes, there's just rocks and all kinds of obstacles for us to climb over. As we started hiking up this mountain, my friends were doing just fine. But I found myself constantly slipping and even falling a few times.
What we found out was that this was really because of the pair of boots that I was wearing. You see, everyone else had on hiking boots or shoes that were made for rough terrain, but I wore some boots that honestly looked cool, but they weren't designed for hiking outdoors.
Human strength is like putting on those boots. It may look nice. It may look cool for you to sustain yourself and achieve your goals and do your best and strain and strive to impress people, and maybe even try to impress God. But ultimately, when we rely on our own strength, we’re going to slip and fall.
Learning to Depend on God
The Lord wants us to depend on Him for strength. What I found to be true in life is oftentimes in seasons when we're depending on our own strength, God will actually allow trials or struggles so that we will learn to depend on Him. In fact, the apostle Paul tells us this in 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 8 and 9. He says this: "We think you ought to know about the troubles we went through in Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. But as a result"—watch this—"we stopped relying on ourselves and we learned to rely only on God."
Listen, friend, if you're in a difficult season of life, if you're going through a struggle or a trial, I want you to look at this situation as an opportunity to learn to depend on God's strength and not your own. Another translation says this: "This happened so that we might not rely on ourselves, but only on God."
Friend, the struggle, the trial you may be dealing with today is an opportunity to seek the Lord for His strength. Human strength will always fail us. But strength that comes from God never will.
