God With Us In the Valley

Today is the start of Advent and we are beginning a new message series. There is an Advent hymn: O come O Come …who? Emmanuel! We call Jesus Emmanuel, because of the verse from Matthew 1:23, “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.” God is with us! What I want to assure you during this message series is that God is with us. God became a human in Jesus, God with us. God sent Jesus because he wanted to make it totally clear he is with us, and with us always, to the end of the age. God is with us. 

Today we’re going to talk about, is God really with us, in the valley? Is God with us in hard times? 

Life has its mountaintop experiences such as when you finally graduate from school, or fall in love, or get that promotion you’ve been waiting for so long or have a grandbaby. During those times you feel on top of the world! And it’s so easy to believe God is with us when we’re on the mountaintop. 

But it’s sometimes more difficult to sense God’s presence when you’re in the valley. We live in a valley; the Williams Valley is a great valley. In the Bible, the valley was sometimes a difficult place. For example, in Psalm 23, it says, “Even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I fear no evil for you, God, are with me.” A valley could be a difficult time. 

If you’re in a valley kind of moment, when things are not going the way you would want them to go, when you get bad news, when you’re hurting, you may feel you are all alone. So, I want to talk about where God is when you’re in a valley.  

Is God the kind of God who loves us so much when life is going well, then disappears when we’re in trouble? No, He’s not! Where is God in the valley, when you are in despair? When you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, when someone you love dies, that is a valley. When you find out your child has a life altering condition, you may wonder in that valley, where is God? 

That Psalms is a book of songs in our Bible. The psalms were songs, but we lost the music. Psalm 84 is a song, wishing for God’s presence.  “Holy lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” We think this was written during the exile, when so many of the people of Israel, lived far away from home, almost 1,700 miles away, and back then there were no cars, trains, planes or buses. They were extremely far away from the temple in Jerusalem. They felt like, God is there in the temple. But it was like God was so far away, it was like he was on the moon. They thought, we can’t go to the temple anymore, and it’s not the same. It’s like God isn’t with us.  

That’s how some of us felt, when we couldn’t come to this church, or some of us still can’t come to the church building. We thought, it’s not the same if you can’t sit down in church. Why would God let this happen? Where is God? Did God move? V. 4 says to God, “Blessed are those who dwell in your house, they are ever praising you.” The Korahite Levites worked in the temple, carrying things related to sacrifices. They were keepers of the gate. The people in exile, far away are thinking, the workers in the temple are the lucky ones, God is with them, but God is not with us in exile. As if God is with other people, but not with me.  

Psalm 84:5 says, O God, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” V.6 is where the valley comes in, “As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs. So, there was a Valley of Baca. Baca means Balsam tree. And the Balsam tree would ooze sap. So, they said, the Balsam tree is a weeper. And so, the root of the word Baca is to weep. The Valley of Baca is a place of tears. It is a difficult place. But blessed are those who put their strength in God. They go on a pilgrimage, and they pass through a valley of tears. But they turn the tears into something different. The valley of tears becomes a place of springs, a place with pools. They change it from a place of tears, to a place of abundant, life giving water. 

So, the people whose strength is in God, not in themselves, they pass through a difficult valley, but they see the goodness of God. These people see life through the eyes of faith. “God is my strength. I am in a difficult place. A place of weeping. But I trust God in the valley. I’m not going to waste all my time worrying about this, because God is my strength.” 

This Scripture doesn’t say, “Blessed are those who pull themselves up by the bootstraps.” It doesn’t say, “Blessed are those who are really determined.” Or “Blessed are those who don’t need anybody, and don’t need God.” Instead Psalm 84 is telling us, blessed are you when you place more faith in God, than in your suffering.  

There’s a member of my family who will remain nameless, who for many years would say to me, “I have a problem.” And every time I heard that, I thought, oh no, now what? “I have a problem.” What’s wrong? “I can’t find…” “I forgot…” “I don’t have enough time to…” 

The thing is, saying, “I have a problem” is declaring that something is wrong, and it focuses you on what is wrong. It reinforces the belief that there is a BIG problem out there.   

But, if you’re a person of faith, you know you are just passing through the valley of tears. You don’t get caught in a trap of despair. Your strength is in God. What do you say? Instead of “I have a problem” you say, “God has a real opportunity here!” God has an opportunity to strengthen you and help you through this. Let’s all tell someone, “God has a real opportunity here!”  Put less emphasis on the problem, and more emphasis on how, by the power of God, and working together with others, this problem will one day end. 

The Israelites who were in exile, they spent a lot of time wishing they were somewhere they were not. They wished they were home, going up to the temple, where God was with them. But eventually, during their years in exile, they learned, in the strength of God, they could still follow God in a foreign land. In the strength of God, they could write down the stories of their faith and make the Old Testament. Our Bible came about because people passing through the valley of tears, the people in exile, stopped saying, “Blessed are those who can go to the temple,” and started saying “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, God.” They learned, God is with you, everywhere! God is with you in a house, God is with you and a mouse. God is with you in a chair, God is with you everywhere! 

That’s a little silly. But what’s really silly is the Israelites thought God is only found in the temple, and that God could only be worshipped in the temple. They learned something different, that God was everywhere, because they went through the valley of tears. That’s where they finally realized, you can worship God without the temple. 

Just because we follow Jesus, doesn’t mean we will never have hard times. We will all walk through valleys of tears, or the valley of the shadow of death. When we do, we’re not alone.  

In Jeremiah 29:13-14, God says, “’¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,’ declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.’” 

The exiles were just passing through the valley of tears. They weren’t exiled forever, they eventually got to go home. God’s promise is for us as well, when you seek God, you will find him. He will be with you. He will help you go through the valley. He will be your strength. With God you will come out the other side and get to the mountaintop. 

My challenge for you this week is think about a difficult area in your life where you need to remember God is with you. Lean into him for strength. Pray for God to remind you he is with you. 

We all like the mountaintop experiences. We love it when life is going great. When we’re on the mountaintop, we know God is good and giving us lots of blessings. But God is just as much with us as we pass through a valley of tears, or the valley of the shadow of death. Seek his strength, and he will draw near to you. God is with you. Amen. 

November 29, 2020