HIgh Places

This is the book I'm trying to read in our twenty-five minute literacy period at school. I have read it before, but this time I want to digest it by reading it slowly and annotating. The verse in Habakkuk 3:19 appears just before the preface and reads like this, "The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like Hind's feet and he will make me to walk upon mine High Places." In the preface, Hannah Hurnard says, "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 continually repeated laying down of our own 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 to which he desires to bring every child of his while they are still living on earth" (12). Deep. Hard to understand. I'm only just beginning to grasp surrender. Acceptance goes against our cultural pep talks. You know the drill. Don't accept any thing less than YOU deserve. Don't settle! Don't back down. Go for the goal. Take life by the throat and get what you want. Never give up. I'm thinking that the contrast between what our world's voices tell us and what God wants for us, is one of the reasons that Jesus said that the road to heaven is narrow and few will find it. Not very many people will accept circumstances when it means surrender and abandonment of self. I guess we don't REALLY believe in the High Places of the earthly journey we are required to take. How often do YOU think about the metaphorical High Places? I DO believe this life is a training ground. I DO believe we are transforming, shaped by our daily living and varied experience. We are headed toward the High Places. I do not know what the High Places look like. I am reading to seek out a definition of the High Places. It feels like I am on a mystery tour, unsure of the stops along the way, innocently trusting the guide.