On The Heights

When I was a kid, our family travelled to Colorado just about every summer for vacation. It was just a day's drive from our home in the rolling hills of northeast Kansas and across the fruited plain to the mountains. One of the coolest parts of that road trip was (and still is!) sighting Pike's Peak from I-70 when it was yet 80 miles away.

The feeling of leaving the plains and moving into the enfolding protection and majesty of the Rocky Mountains remains something that is almost palpable for me. Being in the high country is where I've always wanted to live. It's a constant barrage of beauty and wonder and the ruggedness all around stirs adventure in the soul! Even today, I return to the mountains often and find that the feelings and emotions I had as a child haven't ebbed in the slightest.

Sometimes the trail we're walking turns steeply upward and taxes our strength. Often we're on what seems to be an interminable succession of switchbacks, making little progress. We're out of breath, and the summit we're straining for disappears from sight even though we're closer to it than we ever were. Such is life, such is hiking. Nevertheless:

Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.
For the director of music. On my stringed instruments.

Habakkuk 3:17-19