The moment I took my eyes away from the blinding light that marvels sapphire blue, my eyelids brought down shadows. It was too bright. Too good to be true. Thick fog started to cave in. I only saw a tint of ocean blue, like the sky. A reflection that even I doubt if it’s the waters or the firmament.
Up on the mountain of God, His voice is like roaring thunder to a sheep who has no shepherd. I have my Shepherd and He brought me up to His mountain. Granted me access to see the feet of God. To hear His voice of authority gently and mercifully. The God of Moses said, “No one sees me and lives”. At Mount Horeb, the Mountain of the Great “I’AM” guaranteed intimacy that only the one who is willing to blind his flesh will see. For no one truly sees God unless one dies in the flesh to be with Him. Did Moses saw God’s face? Oh, but the back of His head and under His feet only. For it is of grandest elevation to even be at the feet of Jesus, recognizing the might of His Father from where Jesus stands; be it overwhelming.
So what is this High Places my God calls me to follow Him? Is it the Mount Horeb? Is it the Mountain atop the tallest elevation on earth? Or is it in the Presence of the one who brings me comfort and peace. He who hides us in His unrivaled Light at night and overcoming brightness during the day that we may find ourselves well. He who exposes the hidden things to Himself that He may see my discomfort, fear, and doubt. There He covers me from the warm breeze at night and cold wind on a hot day. It is the ascending and descending pattern. Like a song that bellows in the deepest of Sheol and rises to the unfathomable places of heavens. The fading in and out of my soul, falling over the wildflowers in the valley, even more, the wilderness where the shepherd dines with me. That I may not grow weary on our journey to ascend and descend. That I may sing with Him the song of Love.
The High Places is the many parts of what God reveals as the mysteries in Love that my Shepherd shows me. It is with listening ears and a receiving heart that I understand this place. When I look away from the unrivaled Light, in the dark I shall hardly see. The lower I go the valley may seem too deep for the light, but my Shepherd is of High Places. So he shows the Light in me when I touch what He touches and when I abide what He clings to. There is no particular mark in time when we descend on lower and ascend on higher. It must be done in a manner that which the Shepherd enjoys. I desire where He goes but sometimes I hardly understand the way up and down. It all happens in the rythmm of time, at the same time. In some sense, it has something to do with the pattern of my soul.
The Shepherd knows, when I am afraid, sorrowful, or filled with songs to sing. When I am afraid, He lays down a carpet before me. We rest and He reminds me how well I did. He picks the flowers from the carpet, to smell the fragrance that’s precious to Him. These flowers are the secrets of victories I have done that only He has kept and sought after. He knew that I will be afraid and forgetful.
When I am sorrowful, the Shepherd carries me over His shoulders. For I did not want to move. My feet are tired and my pains are accompanying me to fall on my every step. Doubt visits me even as He carries me on His shoulder. Only He affirms my weakness will be replenished once He brings me back down to ascend again with Him. He lets me walk where He walks and sings my song to me. We sing to each other as we rise and go down again.
Is this High Places a sort of reckoning to find hope when we descend again to the lowest place? Indeed, but much more. It is where my longingness to be kept at Home with Him is a the monumental piece in the song we always sing together. This song is from the line in the book which these patterns of rising and going down birthed from; (Hind’s Feet on High Places)
Hear the summons night and day,
Calling us to come away.
From the heights, we leap and flow
To the valleys down below.
Always answering to the call,
To the lowest place of all.
Sweetest urge and sweetest pain,
To go low and rise again.
The High Places is the starting place for the journey down the lowest places. This is why God calls me to remember that this place is a guaranteed life with Him. A Song about Love, His Shepherd who sing songs with me on our way down the lowest. Whether I fall away, stumble, lose sight, doubt, be much-afraid and grow weary, we will soon rise again with Him for our starting place is up on High. A place where humility, justice, and charity multiplies.
I believe God had long to tell me about this. I thought of it as a long dreary journey too impossible for me to do on my own. It seemed light years away to get to the top. It isn’t even at top of the world in which I find success waiting for me. Though I have stayed long enough at the valley by the entrance of God’s mountain, surely the Shepherd, Jesus reminds me that the journey to High Places is only made possible with Him. It is not much of a place where I go meet God. The lowest isn’t what I think down-to-earth should mean. This place as High as I think, is Jesus in our midst. The Kingdom of God. The low places is this tent, earth, in which we momentarily strive to find comfort and peace.
It all happens in and outside of time. Not a period in time but life itself that can keep us in low places; Much-afraid, prideful, foolish, doubtful, pained, and sorrow. Yet with my Shepherd within our midst, the High Places is never far from our reach. It is in the moment our eyes are open that we wake up to the starting point. The place where the Shepherd is standing; at the feet of Jesus, we learn to live with hind’s feet.
The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills.” — HABAKKUK 3: 17–19 (NKJV)
(Quoted from;https://www.hishighplaces.org/blog/what-is-the-significance-of-hinds-feet)
A hind is a female deer that can place her back feet exactly where her front feet stepped. Not one inch off! She is able to run with abandonment! In times of danger, she is able to run securely and not get “off track.” The hind is able to scale unusually difficult terrain and elude predators
Our hope for you while at His High Places is that you would run with abandonment and find the fullest measure of joy in the Lord, regardless of your circumstances.