Joy in HIS salvation

When I was in college in the 1970s, I wrote a song with these verses from Habakkuk as the lyrics. In those days, I could play the piano and write music. In fact, until the last few years, I could play and compose. I took them for granted, even though I enjoyed them as gifts of God.

Now, only with the right combination of seizure meds can I play, and that is nothing like the old days. Composition may be gone until I'm with the Lord. Bummer having a tumor right in the creative part of the brain. It also hits the auditory cortex and autobiographical memory, so I can't even listen to my own music without problems. There are certainly far worse problems, far worse tumors. I'm simply letting you who love music into my world a bit, to give you some understanding.

Aren't these verses wonderful? One of the ways God's word shows its power is that it was fresh and powerful to me all those years ago, and yet this very passage is all the deeper in meaning to me today, when I have so many new ways to chose to joy in the God of my salvation.

All of you have some losses, somewhere that the fig tree is not blossoming, the grapes are no longer on the vines. We all choose to joy in the Lord or not. He is our strength if we make the choice. And oh! The heights we can reach!

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 [or, he brings me safely over the mountains].

Habakkuk 3:17-19