Don’t Despise the Valley

I was sitting in church this past Sunday and I was faced with the question that we’re all faced with throughout our lives. It’s a question that I’ve addressed on this blog many times, and I’m certain I will address many more times throughout my life.

Is God REALLY Good?

As I sat there listening to a great message, I was sitting next to a man that we had invited to church. I knew some of this man’s story and the struggles that he was walking through. As I was listening to the pastor give his sermon, I couldn’t help but wonder if any of it was resonating with this man or was he sitting there contemplating the pain, loss, and loneliness that his circumstances and his choices had brought him. Was he struggling with the concept of God being good?

Maybe I was projecting my own struggles over the years onto his situation, but it made me think about how much emphasis we place on our circumstances and pain and the correlation we tend to make between our disappointment and His goodness.

Martin Luther once wrote, “This is true faith, a living confidence in the goodness of God.” When we are constantly associating God’s goodness with the things we see, we are not walking in faith – we’re looking for God to prove Himself to us through our circumstances. It’s when we choose to believe, have faith, that God IS good, that we can trust Him in the midst of the pain, the disappointment, and the grief. It’s important to note that Jesus did not calm the seas when Peter stepped out onto the water. Peter didn’t just walk on water, he walked on water IN THE STORM and IN THE MIDST OF THE WAVES!

God has called us to walk on water – even when the storms are raging – I would go as far as to say, ESPECIALLY in the storms. As Myles Munroe wrote, “Your faith is only as strong as the crisis it survives.” These are testing moments to see if we will trust in who HE IS and not just in what He does.

It comes down to what we are pursuing. If we are pursuing His hand, we will find His goodness difficult to hold on to when we are in a storm. But when we seek his face, we come to KNOW Him and His goodness. It’s in those moments of pursuit that we begin to understand, even in our darkest days, that, “We don’t have the capacity to exaggerate God’s goodness. We can distort it or misrepresent it, but we can never exaggerate it.” (Bill Johnson)

I still struggle with His goodness. I’m just trying to be honest. Living by faith is not easy. It was never intended to be. Paul tells us throughout his journey how much he’s suffered and struggled. This is one of the most significant personalities in the bible. He literally wrote half of the New Testament. Yet, his life was far from the “blessed” life that we feel we deserve as Christians. After all, the bible does say that God will never give us more than we can handle, and that he’s going to give us everything we ask for, right? Actually, Paul paints a very different picture.

"For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead."  2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (ESV)

Please don’t misunderstand. We have a heavenly Father that loves to bless His children. BUT, more than earthly riches, He desires that we grow and mature into men and women that KNOW Him. Growth doesn’t happen on the mountain top, it happens in the valleys. It happens in the struggle and in the difficult places. What you become in those moments will determine the blessing in your life. The people that Michelle and I are becoming as we walk through dark days and difficult moments, is greater than any blessing we would ever have otherwise – because we are being molded into the image of Christ – the greatest reward there is.

Don’t despise the valley.

Peace.