Original: October 24, 2007
The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights. Habakkuk 3:19
Then they sweep past like the wind and go on- guilty men, whose own strength is their god.” Habakkuk 1:11
I hunt deer using a method called “spot and stalk.” In the darkness of the early morning hours I will walk several miles into a good area, set up with my Zeiss 10x40’s and Leupold spotting scope, and search the mountainsides for deer. I will literally sit for hours, often in the Western Oregon rain, letting my eyes do the walking for me. This method is critical for high country success as the elevation and steepness of the slopes prohibit a hunter from covering ground. Instead of wearing out my legs I use my eyes, mind and hunting tactics.
It is amazing to watch the country that deer call home. There is strength to how an animal that is clothed in nothing but hair and hoofs can thrive in a wilderness that would kill a man with out the proper equipment. Where wild animals rely on their own strength, men must rely on the strength and durability of outside sources such as boots, tent, sleeping bag, and technical clothing.
Man is comparatively weak. The gestation period of our woman is way too long at nine months. Our babies take way too long to wean or be able to survive on their own. We are slow. We are practically hairless. We have no teeth or claws to rip and kill. Our scent is rancid and any predatory animal can smell us from miles away! Left alone, we would be extinct in just a couple of generations, if not a couple of hours! Practically speaking we are woefully and pathetically made.
Yet man remains the most feared and greatest predator on the planet. I believe God has purposely done this. Here is why. Man is created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26) even though from a survival standpoint we are pathetic weak.
But God has done something special. He has given us a living soul; His imprint by which we have dominion over creation (Genesis 1:26-28), along with a mind far superior to other animals and able to overcome our physical limitations to the degree that man has walked on the moon!
Listen to what God says! Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (Genesis 1:26)
Wow! God has placed a holy and spiritual terror among the animal kingdom towards man. God has given him unique abilities to “rule over” creation in spite of our physical limitations.
What I am taking way to long to say is that man’s strength always has and always will be determined by some other outside source. It is simply the way we have been created. In other words, we are wired to worship something. We are made to move toward dependence upon some god in order to find our source of strength.
Unfortunately many men worship the counterfeit gods of sports, hobbies and ridiculous pleasures. The psalmist had it right when he penned, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:14)
A man is only as good or as strong as his god.
True strength comes when we trust our wallets, our companionship, and our hobbies to the God who is truth (John 14:6), is with us (Hebrews 13:5) and is our strength (Philippians 4:13).
What other “god” do you recklessly depend on for your strength?
