Hinds’ Feet on High Places September 10, 2011
Hinds’ Feet on High Places, by Hannah Hurnard
The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me walk upon mine high places. Habakkuk 3:19
A friend of mine introduced me to this book when we were in college. To be honest, I teased her a bit about the book because the protagonist’s name is Much Afraid, which sounded to me like the name of a Care Bear. She graciously tolerated my teasing and insisted that I try reading it anyway. And I’m so glad I did. A Care Bear story it is not! Little did I know that poor little Much Afraid would have such an impact on my own journey of faith and how I look at the trials of life. Her story is an allegory, and I think the author explains it so well so I quote from the preface:
“How deeply we who love the Lord of Love and desire to follow him long for the power to surmount all difficulties and tests and conflicts in life in the same exultant and triumphant way [as a gazelle leaps from rock to rock with extraordinary grace and agility.] To learn the secret of victorious living has been the heart’s desire of those who love the Lord, in every generation.
“We feel we would give anything if only we could, in actual experience, live on the High Places of love and victory here on this earth and during this life–able always to react to evil, tribulation, sorrow, pain, and every wrong thing in such a way that they would be overcome and transformed into something to the praise and glory of God forever. As Christians we know, in theory at least, that in the life of a child of God there are no second causes, that even the most unjust and cruel things, as well as all the seemingly pointless and undeserved sufferings, have been permitted by God as a glorious opportunity for us to react to them in such a way that our Lord and Savior is able to produce in us, little by little, his own lovely character.
“The Song of Songs expresses the desire implanted in every human heart, to be reunited with God himself, and to know perfect and unbroken union with him. He has made us for himself, and our hearts can never know rest and perfect satisfaction until they find it in him.
“It is God’s will that some of his children should learn this deep union with himself through the perfect flowering of natural human love in marriage. For others it is equally his will that the same perfect union should be learned through the experience of learning to lay down completely this natural and instinctive desire for marriage and parenthood, and accept the circumstances of life which deny them this experience. This instinct for love, so firmly implanted in the human heart, is the supreme way by which we learn to desire and love God himself about all else.
“But the High Places of victory and union with Christ cannot be reached by any mental reckoning of self to be dead to sin, or by seeking to devise some way or discipline by which the will can be crucified. The only way is by learning to accept, day by day, the actual conditions and tests permitted by God, by a continually repeated laying down of our will and acceptance of his as it is presented to us in the form of the people with whom we have to live and work, and in the things which happen to us. Every acceptance of his will becomes an altar of sacrifice, and every such surrender and abandonment of ourselves to his will is a means of furthering us on the way to the High Places of which he desires to bring every child of his while they are still living on earth.
“The lessons of accepting and triumphing over evil, of becoming acquainted with grief, and pain, and, ultimately, of finding them transformed into something incomparably precious; of learning through constant glad surrender to know the Lord of Love himself in a new way and to experience unbroken union with him–these are the lessons of the allegory in this book. The High Places and the hinds’ feet do not refer to heavenly places after death, but are meant to be the glorious experience of God’s children here and now–if they will follow the path he chooses for them.”
If these words resonate with your heart, or if you’re in a place of fear and/or confusion about the path your life has taken, I strongly recommend this book! Even if you’re confident about your journey with the Lord and you’re not in a season of doubt, this book gives a beautiful illustration of our Savior’s love for us and his desire to demonstrate his power in our lives.
