“The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights (Hab. 3:19).”

Driving through Colorado mountains on a vacation, my family discovered how easy it is to mistake an up for a down.

Winding through an extremely difficult mountain pass where stony peaks arced away from the car at steep angles, it seemed as though the towering rock enveloping us was forcing us downward.

Yet, despite our visual sensations, the struggling noise of the car engine indicated we were in fact on an incline. Only by looking in the rearview mirror could we compensate for the optical illusion and see that we were really climbing higher.

In a similar way, when faced with God’s discipline or the world’s difficulties, we may feel as though we’re being brought down, but as we look back over the path the Lord has enabled us to tread, we’ll see he was actually taking us to spiritual heights.

The journey may be steep and hard, but God only works to lead us higher and closer to his heart.

Prayer: Sovereign Lord, you are my strength. Enable me today to walk through the valleys of this life and to the spiritual heights that are closest to your heart.