When the Harvest Is Gone and the Praise Remains

Marcus Briggs had farmed the same 340 acres outside Lubbock, Texas that his grandfather had broken ground on in 1948. In the spring of 2011, a drought so severe it hadn't been seen in a century scorched everything — the cotton fields turned to dust, the cattle had to be sold off early, and the bank called twice in August. By October, the grain bins were empty and the pastures were brown as old paper.

His neighbor found him one Sunday morning standing at the edge of the ruined field, hat in hand. "You alright, Marcus?" he asked.

Marcus was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "I've been thinking about what's still true." He listed them slowly: his wife was still beside him. His children still called on Sundays. The Lord hadn't moved an inch.

"I'm not okay," he admitted. "But I'm not finished."

That distinction is exactly what Habakkuk is drawing in those final verses of his prophecy. The prophet doesn't pretend the fig tree has blossomed. He sees the empty vines, the failed olive harvest, the barren pens. He catalogs every loss with the honesty of a man who has walked through it. And then — not because things have improved, but because God hasn't changed — he chooses joy.

The feet of a deer don't grip the mountain because the mountain got easier. They grip because the deer was made for exactly this kind of impossible terrain. Habakkuk's praise isn't denial. It's traction. It's the soul learning to stand on the heights of what God is, even when the valley below has nothing left to offer.