Welcome back to another article of this series titled The Mighty God & The Taunting Giant and if you are new here: welcome. I hadn't originally planned to do a part two to Overcoming The Giant Of Comfort and it isn't really a part two. I like to think of it as a bonus article or a case study if I can put it that way. I had originally named this article "Walking through the valley" because truly, it is all it is about. I had written this article weeks back but set it on the side as I was myself transitioning from the mountain to the valley. The valley is a scary place. It is terrifying. It is the place where you ask all kind of questions and where none of the answers make sense. It is scary because it is the place were your enemies can come for you without you even knowing. It is scary because with regards to them, you are at a disadvantage: they can watch you and monitor you from the high tops and surprise you at a time of weakness. The valley is terrifying because it is first a place of war and battle.
When I started my transition/ walk into my very own valley (when I thought of custom fit that is really not what I had in mind because there's nothing glamorous about the valley but anyway...), I started looking through the Bible of symbols of the valley and this is probably the first one I stumbled upon: the valley as a place of battle. I went to 1 King 20 which is the story of the war between the kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Syria. The most important, I would even say crucial, verse in that story to me is verse 28:
"And a man of God came near and said to the king of Israel, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because the Syrians have said, 'The Lord is a god of the hills but he is not a god of the valleys,' therefore I will give all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord." Now let me give you the background to put that verse in context: the King of Syria sent messenger to Ahab, King of Israel, requiring from him to give away his silver, gold, wives and children, which Ahab refused. And so, he gather people to go on an excursion against the Syrian army and their King. The people marching with Ahab defeated the Syrian army and Ben-Haddad, king of Syria, fled. After that defeat people came to him saying that Israel had won because they fought on the hills and if they were to fight in the valleys, the Syrian army would certainly win. And so the Syrian army when against Israel in the valley and still, was defeated. This verse is important because of two things:
1- It speaks of the unchanging nature of God
God is as much God in the valley as He is on the mountain. My experience in the valley is that we tend to see God as something different and less powerful/ glorious than what we experience on the mountain. Yes we do get to experience God in ways we probably don't know before but ultimately He is still that same God. It doesn't matter how high the mountains we stand on are or how low the valleys we walk through are: God is still God no matter where we stand;
2- God can still give us the victory in the valley
The thing with being in the valley is there is sometimes that "oh this cannot get better" mood that seeps into our soul and our morale. But this verse is here to remind us that no matter how deep the valley we walk through is, if our enemies come against us to surprise us at our weakest, God will deliver us from them because he is the God of the mountains as well as the God of the valleys. He created them both and the is sovereign over both of them and victory is independent of where we are, but exclusively dependent on God. And if you have followed me long enough then you are familiar with that say that I really love: "God always win".
After finding that first symbol of the valley I kept turning the pages of my Bible and of course did more research only and found two more symbols that I combined as one : the valley of Baca which translates into "weeping/sorrows" and the valley of the shadow of death. I chose to combine those two because they are symbols both found in the book of Psalms that was written by King David. If being attacked by your enemies is not scary enough then reading death and sweeping/sorrows in the same sentence should do. The valley sometimes comes with an isolation and a silence (sometimes from God) that can be deafening and deadly to us. It is a place where we get stripped of things/people we have sometimes carried for years, we hold close to our hearts, or that we believe we can't live without. But it is the place where God wants to take all of that away in order for us to be where He needs us to be. And that part not only is painful but it is uncomfortable. And sometimes God has not other choice but to shake us in order for us to overcome the giant of comfort because He realizes that the gentle nudges don't work out so well. It is the part where we are tested: everything that we are, everything we believe in. And sometimes despite our best attempts to reach out to God, all we seem to hear back is the echo of our own voices. Things, people and situation that threaten us and everything that God has planned for us come from everywhere but, no matter how much we "text" or "call" God, it feels like He constantly sends us to voicemail, worse: like He ghosted us.
But David said two things that stand true with regards to the valleys he went through and I'm sure some of us went through/are going through. He said "When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me" (Ps 23:4) and then to add about the valley of Baca "As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs, the early rain also covers it with pools." (Ps 84:6) Our experience of the valley is not turned around by our own strength or our willingness to see things change but through the presence of God with and withing us. Jesus says in John 7:38 " Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." The living water revives us in the time where we are weak, brings consolation in our afflictions and hope as we walk through the valley. Our strengths are and ability to keep moving are renewed and restored. The valley of Baca and the valley of the shadow of death are where we experience the faithfulness of God and the intimacy of a deep relationship with him, away from the distractions that we would have on the mountains, in the times were everything is going well, the times were we are comfortable. And as much as God tries to attract us away from the noise we're surrounded with while comfortable, the valley also come with an internal noise that can drown God's voice or have Him decide to be silent until we finally are quiet enough - both inside and outside- to hear Him in the soft murmur He speaks in (1 King 19:11-13) and give us the game plan.
I kept the best one for last because this is an aspect of the valley I didn't really know about until I started looking into the scriptures to write this article. The valley as a place of Praise (2 Chronicles 20). When you go through the valley the last thing you want to do is praise God but it is in fact the thing to do and what brings about victory and a breakthrough. It sounds counter-intuitive but it is the thing to do considering that the valley is about faith thus challenging logic and intuition. Our intuition might want us to panic, to surrender or to find shortcuts to get out of the valley before the time appointed by God but faith is sticking the course of it, knowing that beyond what we see there is something bigger. Faith in the valley is similar to praising God in the hallway until the door He promised He would open, opens. Faith is trusting God to carry us through the valley no matter how long the journey and finding the strength to pray asking for the resources we need for the journey instead of saying "God take away from me that journey."
In conclusion, both the mountain and the valley reveal characters of God we ought to know if we want to develop a deep relationship with Him. The valley is the intimacy of the darkest hour where all of who we are is revealed and we get to write other names of God we were not familiar with in the story of our lives. Both the mountain and the valley are places that are necessary for us to go through in order to get familiar with God in ways that all fit together in His grand scheme of life for us. So maybe the issue is not really where we look for God, whether it be the mountain or the valley, but how we look at Him in the places He invites us to meet Him.
I hope this article encourages someone and if you are going through the valley: keep going because as my sister once said : "beyond fear and hopelessness, there is something bigger"
Until next time,
The Happiness Fairy 👸
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