I never knew a valley could be this deep. It doesn’t seem like a valley anymore, more like a pit. These past months I have walked and slept and ate and worked in pain so intense I often can’t walk or sleep or eat, but always I have to keep working, keep going. Psalm 42 says, “all your waves have washed over me.” (v. 7) I get that now. Wave upon wave of grief and sorrow, each one bigger than the last, and you think that surely this must be the last wave of the storm, but there is an even bigger one rising up right behind the last. It also says, “my tears have been my food day and night” (v. 3) and I get that too.
Of course, it hasn’t always been this way. Last fall, at the very beginning of our descent into our deep valley, we visited another valley, hiked, picnicked, and played in it. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
Maybe someday I’ll have the perspective to see our valley as this beautiful. Right now I can’t, but when I see that river twisting through the bottom of the valley it speaks to me. This I know: in my deepest sorrow – there is still a river.
This river is the unmerited favor of God – grace.
This river is the promise of new mercies every morning.
This river is the family of God who love like Jesus.
This river is an open Bible.
This river is the invitation to cry out to Jesus, again and again and again.
This river is the knowledge that God is always working in a thousand ways we cannot see.
This river is an unshakable belief in the sovereignty of God.
This river is praise when the harvest for your service is only pain.
The river is always there, it runs the length of the whole valley, and yet sometimes I wander around seemingly unable to find it.
I can’t find the river when I believe these situations and people aren’t covered by the grace of God.
I can’t find the river when all I can think of are my resources needed to meet the demands of a day.
I can’t find the river when I’m isolated from God’s people.
I can’t find the river when I don’t open my Bible.
I can’t find the river when I rehearse my pain instead of lifting it up to Jesus.
I can’t find the river when I think that any part of this valley is outside of His sovereign control.
I can’t find the river when I don’t praise as an act of faith.
And I think: this valley, isn’t it painful enough? Why wander away from the river? And look at the valley again; look at all the beautiful growth in that desert valley, all because of the river. That river has cut through rock and now it is nourishing growth. It reminds me of God’s offer to make me “a tree planted by streams of water” (Jeremiah 17:7-8).
I’m here living out heartache that my worrying mind never even conjured up – but I can tell you – the river, it’s still here, and your work today isn’t just to blindly press on, it’s to come to the river. Don’t reject God’s means of grace in your pain; it’s just adding foolishness to an already miserable situation. I’m learning this, that spiritual maturity is a firm faith that takes hold of all that is ours in Christ, that draws upon unseen spiritual resources, that believes that these unseen resources are real enough to be put to use, not just talked about: new morning mercies, strength in place of weakness, worship in the wake of loss. Spiritual muscle is the strength that comes from drawing upon unseen resources in repeated and deeper ways, not by just experiencing hardship.
This spring I hiked along another river cutting through a desert canyon. The river banks were lush and bursting with life, butterflies flitted, flowers bloomed, trees swayed in the breeze, and the red rock towered above us. We followed that river all the way back to a red rock cavern where the river was fed by a crack in the rock where water seeped through. I just sat there and stared at that water seeping through the crack in the rock, nourishing more than I could count downstream, and I wept, because this is me, this is you, in Christ.
It doesn’t matter how barren the valley is around you when you have a nourishing stream right by you.
