Living in Your Valley
There is nothing God doesn't know about your life. You may know the past and present, but God also knows the future. Choose today to walk securely - not in what you know, but in what you believe.
David Jeremiah
Our journey through life begins with the knowledge of the past and the understanding of our present. However, we cannot fully envision our future. As we walk along the path of life, we can only see and know what is directly in front of us. There are so many things we do not know, and in fact, many questions we do not even know to ask. The key to a successful journey is coming to an understanding of those things we do not know. But how do we arrive at learning about what we don't yet know?
As an educator for over 20 years, I’ve always loved standing before a class and teaching students something they are eager to learn. You can tell when this happens as they begin to ask questions that I might not have even thought about. As I continue to deliver information, I see their minds racing, trying to dig deeper into the topic and truly come to understand it. I taught history for years, and I found it most fascinating when we discussed how government works, especially in relation to economies and making money. (Don’t worry, we’re not going down a rabbit trail here—stick with me.) My students would ask deep questions about the philosophy of government when I made this one statement: “The government determines how much you make.” This question sparked many responses, and regardless of whether one agrees with the statement or not, it opened up a flood of discussion and a desire for more information. We would literally spend weeks exploring and learning from that one question.
Life is not much different. We journey through life with knowledge of our past, which helps us make decisions for the future. We also understand our present situation, which helps us see reality. However, we cannot see the future. Because we can’t foresee the future, we can’t always make decisions that guarantee mountaintop experiences without valley moments. But what if I told you there is a way to make decisions that lead to more mountaintop experiences than valley experiences? Too often, it is our own decisions that lead us through the valleys of life.
Returning to the main character in this series, Jehoshaphat (or King J), we see him make two immediate decisions that impact his life’s journey. King J understood that by making these two decisions, he set himself up for victory in the valley. We all desire victory in our valleys.
#1 Seek The Lord
“And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah gathered themselves together, to ask help of the Lord: even out of all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord.” II Chronicles 20:3-4
The first step in walking through your valley of blessing is to seek the Lord. In the first two verses of the story we read last week, we saw that the attack on Jehoshaphat was great. It came from every side, and he had no apparent way to defend against it. King J was at a complete loss and could not see a way out of the valley. It almost seemed as though his entire life up to that point was a setup to see how he would respond. Have you ever felt that way? Do you feel like that now? Perhaps the last year has felt like a setup to test how you will respond to the challenges of this new year. I understand how that feels. So, what did King J do? He "set himself to seek the Lord." Don’t miss the wording here. “He set himself” — he put himself in position. His position mattered. Where he was mattered. How he responded in that position mattered. I picture King J hitting his knees in prayer and praying these words:
“Lord please grant me your spirit that it may rest upon me, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;” Isaiah 11:2
I can see King J praying these words and responding as Joshua did when walking through his own valley:
“And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.” Joshua 2:11
The first step in walking through your valley into a blessing is to seek the Lord.
We quote these verses often, but they are some of the hardest to live out:
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6
#2 Get to Church
“And Jehoshaphat stood in the congregation of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court,” II Chronicles 20:5
This next step toward walking in your valley of blessing is simple: get to church. It was in the sanctuary that King J turned in his darkest hours. We often say, "When I get myself together, then I’ll go to church." But God does not want fixed people; He desires broken people. It is in our brokenness that He can work the most. It is in our broken state that God puts us back together with a glue that will never break again. We try to use quick fixes to patch ourselves up, but when we allow God to fix us, He does it with a glue stronger than super glue. I want to be fixed by God, not by any human solution.
We live in times where the enemy has convinced us that it's not safe to go to church. This is a lie straight from the pit of hell. I have heard all sorts of excuses:
- "The church doesn’t have a place for my children."
- "They aren't wearing masks."
- "They make us wear masks."
- "Social distancing is awkward."
- "I can’t worship freely."
- "The government has the church under its control."
I’ve heard it all. These are lies, and this is exactly what the enemy wants us to believe. Rather than going to the place that offers the greatest hope we can find, we sit on our couches and pretend to be in church. But your couch is not church. Make an intentional decision today to obey the Word:
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” Hebrews 10:25
Do you see why you go to church? Exhortation. Exhortation encourages you—and those around you—to make a change. You cannot change until you change your position. Notice how King J’s first action was to change his position by seeking the Lord, and then the very next step was standing in the house of the Lord. So many are still walking through a valley of despair instead of a valley of blessing because they have not stood. They know to drop to their knees in prayer and seek the Lord, but their obedience hasn't lifted them to the place of standing. Standing in the presence of the Lord in the congregation of believers.
The second step in walking through your valley into a blessing is to get to church.
How will you journey through the valley?
Mr. Euler has over 20 years of experience working in Christian Schools, 13 as a Head of School and is currently the Head of School at Word of God Academy, Shreveport, LA., a ministry of Word of God Ministries.
Website www.wogacademy.org
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