In a sermon I heard the other day from Robert Mandu “You can’t rush through the valley, you must walk.” The way that he explained it is; as in Psalm 23 “though I walk through the Valley of Darkness (other versions say the darkest valley), I will fear no evil.” And what David is talking about when he wrote this Psalm is not the “City Dark”. Not, when you walk out the front door of a restaurant in the middle of of the city, this is the darkness that you see in the middle of the night when you are camping and the moon is only a sliver. The kind of darkness where even though you think your eyes are open it’s so dark that you swear you are walking in your sleep. You can’t see the steps in front of you. Even if there was a bear chasing you, there’s no way to run, you can’t see anything in front of you. THAT kind of dark. So, keeping that in mind, we have times in our lives that we are in that kind of Valley. When that happens, we aren’t in a place where we can run, it’s about walking. It’s about feeling your way through the darkness trusting that God is going to provide the light that you need on your path. And yes, there are times that the light He is giving is not something that we want to see. I get it! There have been times in the valley that I want to scream and beg God to stop. I have tried yelling, screaming, begging, crying, and while it made me feel better, it didn’t change the path, through the valley of darkness that I was on. There are times that I have tried to run through the valley under my own accord and you know what happens, I trip on a root and fall down. And when I fall, I am left laying there in the mud in the cold damp air wishing that I would have just let God do what He was trying to do instead of taking control of the thing that I knew I couldn’t and shouldn’t and frankly, had no right to control in the first place.

Then there’s the getting up out of the mud where you are embarrassed, you hope no one else saw what happened and you just want to pretend that it didn’t happen but God allows the mud to stain your clothes, leaves to be stuck in your hair and maybe even a scrape here and there because it’s a way that your story can be used in the future to show His glory and how He got you out of it.

Here’s the thing that I have realized, God knows what we need more than we do. Frankly I don’t know why I keep trying to argue this point with Him but something that He has been teaching me is that He knows what is best. God knows what you need when you need it and often times He knows what the ultimate mountaintop is that He has planned for you so maybe, God is seeing if you can handle the little things, the stuff in the valley before you are able to be trusted with the mountaintop.

I recall one time where I was sure that the Valley of Darkness was all consuming, I couldn’t see myself out of a paper bag let alone be able to take 2 steps forward. I was wrestling with facing the “pruning of the vines” in my life and both having clear direction and not being able to do anything about it, all at the same time. As the days and prayers went by I thought I was doing what God wanted me to do. It felt like it and I felt as though I was walking through doors as they came open but there was this deep, and I mean deep seated fear and insecurity that was driving my every thought. Each word that came from my mouth was digging a deeper hole. I wasn’t sleeping, eating right, working out, being relationally mature and I certainly wasn’t treating myself very well with the words that I was saying to myself, the lies that I was allowing to work their way into my heart and mind. As soon as there was something positive that I knew was from the Lord, the enemy jumped into my thoughts and I found myself in a spiral that I couldn’t get out of. I was reaching for all the tools in my tool box when I was reminded of how much I loved worship music. So, one morning, as I was singing through my worship playlist it dawned on me that the valley of darkness that I was walking through was turning into an opportunity for me to show God that I did truly trust Him with not just my future but with that very moment.

The valley can sometimes seem like it goes on forever and when we are walking through it in the darkness it’s easy to not realize that you are slowly coming out of the valley and making your way to the top of the mountain. Before you know it, the sun is starting a rise a little, and as you turn your gaze upwards instead of being so concerned with where your feet are walking you realize that you have been climbing the mountain for some time now. The fog has lifted, the sun is warming your back, your breath starts to slow, the air seems lighter and you realize that there is in fact victory coming.

And when we reach a mountaintop, because we will, it can be just as easy to tell our mind not to remember where we were just at. However, if we don’t allow ourselves to turn around, even for just one moment, we rob ourselves the opportunity to enjoy the view of where we just were. There is such powerful freedom in overcoming the valley times. I have had more valley moments in my life than I care to remember but I know, without a shadow of a doubt that God has and will continue to use those times. Plus, whether or not we want to admit it, the times in the valley are a great opportunity for endurance and as said:

“Dear brothers and sisters , when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested , your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” James 1:2-4

Valley times have been and will continue to be the hardest of times. But don’t give up. One thing that I can say with all honesty, God has lead me out of every valley that I have ever been in. While I would like to live in the fantasy world of thinking I will never be there again, I know that’s not the case. And, I know that when I am there again I will likely have to pull out the tools that remind me that it’s not a forever darkness but what I also know is the more I keep my gaze upon Him and the more that I trust His plan for my life the easier it may be to squint my eyes a little in those dark times and be able to see His light a little sooner than times before.