Feet Made for the Heights

On September 10, 1960, Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia lined up for the Olympic marathon in Rome with no shoes on his feet. The other runners wore the finest racing flats money could buy. Bikila had trained in the highlands above Addis Ababa, running at nearly eight thousand feet of elevation on rocky trails and dirt roads, his bare soles toughened by thousands of miles over unforgiving ground.

That evening, as the marathon wound past the Baths of Caracalla and along the ancient Appian Way, Bikila ran with a fluid stride that belied the cobblestones beneath him. He pulled away from the field in the final miles and crossed the finish line near the Obelisk of Axum — a monument Italy had taken from Ethiopia during its 1935 invasion — in a world-record time of 2:15:16. He barely looked winded. While others relied on engineered cushioning, Bikila's feet had been shaped by the highlands themselves.

The psalmist David wrote, "He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he causes me to stand on the heights" (Psalm 18:33). David was not asking for better sandals. He was testifying that God Himself had prepared him, that every rocky path and steep ascent in the wilderness years had made him sure-footed for the battles ahead.

The same is true for every believer. The difficult terrain you are running through right now — the financial strain, the relational heartbreak, the season that feels impossibly hard — is not wasted ground. God is toughening your stride. He is making your feet sure for heights you have not yet seen. The race is not won by those with the best equipment, but by those whose feet have been prepared by the Almighty.