When faced with a difficult situation, we all want that elusive magic answer. How much easier it is to press a button and see the solution instantly appear. Yet how rarely the Lord allows us to walk that way.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death God is with me. That was David’s comment on more than one life crisis he experienced. Paul took a similar view when he said God is with us in the midst of tribulation.
It would suit me a lot better if God simply enabled me to avoid the tribulation in the first place, or took me on a different route than the valley of that awful shadow. Yet so often he doesn’t. And there’s a reason.
That valley represents a lot of the dying we have to do in this life. Dying to our own security. Dying to our own plans. Dying to our own pleasure. Dying to our own dreams.
It is a consistent pattern in the Bible that God gives a dream, then apparently destroys it, and then eventually resurrects it but in a different form. In the process, we surrender a lot of things to Christ, God gets a lot more glorified and we all look back and thank God he never answered some of the foolish, self-centred prayers we prayed.
Think of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, David or Paul. They all reached the goal in the end, but not by the way they thought. It was harder, but in the end better.
The only way to life is through the shadow of death. The New Testament calls it the way of the cross. Never trust a leader who is not walking that way. Don’t listen to preachers who peddle a cheap gospel in which the primary concern of God is to fulfil your dreams or satisfy your agenda.
We have to allow our deepest hopes and aspirations to pass through the Refiner’s fire. In the process, God may appear to be stripping us of everything that mattered. What he’s really doing is preparing us for something that will make what we previously hoped for look like the pale substitute it actually was.
I have done a lot of running over the years. Although I always kept track of my time and hoped to improve on it, my main goal was simply to finish the course without stopping. Paul talked about crossing the finish line, not winning the race. And the race he was referring to was not a sprint. It followed the course the ancient Greek soldier Pheidippides ran from Marathon to the Acropolis in Athens to bring good news that a few thousand heroic Greeks had conquered a vast army of Persians (with apologies to my Iranian friends and a wink to my Greek colleagues). Last October we sat in a coffee shop so close to the original course we could have waved to him as he passed by.
Are you passing through the shadow? Fear not - he is with you. There’s an end to every valley and he will bring you through.
I can’t tell you to enjoy the process, but I can tell you there is gold for you at the end which will make it all worthwhile. In the meantime, cast your cares on him. He may cause you to pass through the fire, but he will never leave you in it.
CONSIDER PARTNERING WITH DAVID & ELAINE CAMPBELL IN HELPING TO SUSTAIN THEIR ACTIVE MINISTRY.
AWAKENING MINISTRIES // FOUNDATION of FAITH Project
Foundation of Faith Project is strengthening generations in faith and bringing beautiful changes to the communities around them. Through teaching, mentoring and coaching, many are finding out who they are and who they are destined to be. They are bringing more to their world. David Campbell is the key leader in this initiative and you can support him financially directly through Awakening Ministries.
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