12/08/2018
You have prayed and asked God to come into your life, you have gone down in the waters of baptism, and for a while you felt the ecstatic joy that comes in that moment... you claimed His victory over the effects of the world. Then as time goes by you begin to feel the weight of the world once again, or your circumstances join together in order to drag you into the “valley of despair.” How is this so, why has God allowed this, and how can we escape it... or where is God when we need His rescue?
“Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
Romans 8:33-34, 37 ESV
We reassure ourselves with scripture that says that Jesus intercedes for us, and God conquers all, yet we all have our little ups and downs in faith. Most of these are caused by events in our lives that we lay claim to and try to repair on our own. We wrestle with them, and eventually we see the light, hand them over to God, and He solves them for us. However there are certain times when the struggles of life come together against us in a perfect storm that washes over us, dragging us down into what we call “the valley of despair”, and try as we might we just can’t seem to escape.
Martin Luther King spoke of the valley of despair, it is that place where we perceive our troubles as insurmountable, and sometimes allow them to define us! He was talking about racial injustice, but we feel the effects of these valleys in our walk of faith as well. This is different than the small rattles and shakes that we occasionally experience in faith... in these particular valleys we judge ourselves and find ourselves unworthy. In these valleys Satan begins to convince us that this is our rightful place and that either God desires for us to remain there, or that we have reached a place where not even God can rescue us. It is at this moment that real despair sets in.
In truth, God is no further away from us in our “valleys of our despair” than he was when we experienced the little shakes of our faith, or at the moment we first believed. What is different is our believing that He can, or will, see us through them. In these tough times we pray, but the pain of waiting on Him feels immense. In these times the suffering causes us to let go of His hand, or deny him as Peter did Jesus. In these valleys we lose sight of God’s will for us and see only our own, But I am here to tell you to have faith, don’t lose hope, and hold tight... He is right there beside you.
When trouble confronts people they are often advised that God is good and told that God makes all things good... but all things are not good, and the scripture that we are read does not say that. This particular scripture is often misinterpreted...
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28 ESV
All things are not good, but God uses even those bad or desperate times in our lives as He works out a good conclusion for us. To understand I look back on my own life. When my wife and I were first married I moved her from Tennessee to Virginia where I was working two jobs and was finishing up school. Despite these hardships we were deeply in love and although Ann spent much of her day alone at home we made the most of our evenings and dinners together. One night I came home and dinner was waiting for me. I knew it smelled unusual when I opened the stairway door that led to our little apartment, but I wasn’t about to say a word. We were having chili so it was dished up and I took the first bite... it was horrible! I was struggling to swallow each spoonful when Ann revealed that it was inedible. She had received a recipe from her sister in law, and where it should have read “ 2 teaspoons ground clove garlic” her sister in law had written “2 teaspoons ground clove.” I would never suggest that you make that mistake and put ground cloves in your chili! I told this humorous story to make this point... not everything in a recipe tastes good on its own; as a matter of fact it takes great skill to combine the right ingredients into a delicious meal; a skill that Ann has since mastered.
Our lives and spirituality are very similar. When the ingredients are out of proportion, wrong, or if we take a bite before the recipe is complete, then we find the flavor distasteful. Valleys of despair are like that, God is combining all of the ingredients that will eventually come together to make a good outcome, but until they are all mixed together it can be distasteful indeed.
God does rescue us from our despair, but we must believe that He will. Sometimes our troubles look like death; they look like dry bones in a desert, but even when we think it is beyond salvage... dead... irretrievable, it is not. Listen to this passage of scripture about a very real “valley of despair”...
“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered, "O Lord God, you know." Then he said to me, "Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord."”
Ezekiel 37:1-6 ESV
Before these bones could be raised up trouble had to befall some living thing, something had to die. These bones first had to be stripped of flesh and baked white in the hot dry sun, but then the Lord used them to teach Ezekiel, and us, a lesson; He brought them back to life. We learn lessons in the “valleys of our despair.” Sometimes we learn about our faith, but at other times we are taught about our character, that who we once were is most certainly not who we are now, or that the sins we carry around like baggage have already been cast away by God.
Whatever you experience in your personal valley, and there will be a valley in your life at some point, it has been placed there as an ingredient in the heavenly recipe that will one day be you. Don’t be disappointed in who you are now, or give up in the middle of your pilgrimage towards eternity with God, because He just isn’t through with you yet, and He will most certainly put flesh back on those dry bones.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the lessons you teach me each and every day. Thank you especially Holy Father for those lessons that lead me deep into valleys of despair because these lessons teach me of your most profound mysteries, and about those hidden parts of me that stand like walls separating us. Help me Merciful Father to realize that there is nothing in this life of significant value except for your presence and the love I am able to experience. Don’t let me get trapped in depression, mental pain, or heartbreak by the things of this world. Don’t allow the words of men to cut me, or the whips of society tear me apart. Help me Heavenly Father to remain focused on you, and not to linger in the valleys that I must walk through. Pull tight on the corners of the world and stretch it; lifting up the valleys, and pulling down the mountains until my path to you is straight, flat, and easily traversed. You are my God, and even when you are still, and your silence causes me to fear, let me feel the warmth of your hand upon me. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you who walks with me through the valleys of death, and despair. Great are you my God whose good cheer overshadows my sorrow. Praise you Father, and May all men sing joyfully “Glory to God in the highest!” now and forevermore.
Rich Forbes