When In The Valley...Remember

If you think God has forgotten you, then you have forgotten who God is.

Anonymous 

As I was winding down tonight, I came across a video that a dear friend had posted on Facebook by a singer that I was somewhat familiar with but singing a song that I hadn't heard before. I asked and she shared with me that it was a young woman named Lauren Daigle and the song she was singing was called "Trust In You."

I love it when God does this to me...I hear a song or read a passage of Scripture or I read something in a book and immediately I am moved to tears...I begin to think back to all the times when I only had trust in God...I was broken...I was financially a wreck...I was at the lowest point of my life...I was in the valley, angry and screaming at God, wondering when my time in the valley would be over. What did I have to do to get back on the mountain? And then God would simply tell me this: Remember

When in the valley I remember...

What God has done...He sent His Son to take the wrath and judgment for me so that I could have a personal relationship with Him. To me, that is enough. Anything else God does for me is a bonus. 

When God Comforted me...He carried me in December of 2014 when I went through one of the darkest times in my life. In the span of months, I lost my wife, my home, and I was all alone...or so I allowed the Enemy to make me believe...But then, almost 2 years later, He sent someone to comfort me in a way that I knew it was from Him. He sent me someone to help me and walk with me and teach me every single day. She shined the love and light of Christ into the darkness and brought me out of the place I was in.  

When He guided me...All the times...more than I can count...when I have walked away from God...not understanding...being selfish in my humanness...trying to live my life the way I wanted to live it...yet He still guided me in the direction that He had planned for me to go. He has never taken His hand off my life. Constantly directing me and sending me down paths that any sane man wouldn't go down. Even when I have fought His direction God has found creative ways to get me into line and moving the way He wanted me to go. 

When He answered my prayer exactly as I wanted...I was at a point in my life where I needed something "good" to happen because I had been through so much...God opened a door professionally to "give" me what I wanted even though as I look back on it I didn't deserve it and I didn't "need" it at the time but in my humanness secretly desired. I simply wasn't ready for the responsibility but God gave it to many anyways to teach me, test me, and refine me in ways that I could never imagine.

When He didn't do what I wanted and I later realized it was exactly what I needed...I went through a desperate time in my late 20's and I begged God to make it stop...I was losing everything that "I" held as important in my life...I was absolutely wrecked as a person (drinking all the time) and I couldn't seem to do anything right...every situation that I touched was cursed and ultimately made worse by my hand...I would lie awake at night and beg God to fix the situations and beg Him to restore things to their previous status...But God had other plans...and as I look back...all the pain and suffering was worth it...all of that made me into who I am today. It was exactly what I needed even though then I didn't know it. 

The song that I referenced earlier has a line in it that says the following:

When You don't move the mountains

I'm needing You to move

When You don't part the waters

I wish I could walk through

When You don't give the answers

As I cry out to You

I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You

That is my testimony today...No matter what mountain I face I will trust in the Lord. During any time of resistance or when I feel myself slipping down the mountain into the valley...I will stand as tall as I can and cry out to the Lord and tell Him that I will trust only in Him. As the song says, "God is my strength and comfort, He is my steady hand, He is my firm foundation, the Rock on which I stand. His ways are always higher, His plans are always good. There is not a place that I can stand that Christ hasn't already stood." I simply have to put my trust in the Lord and lean into Him while I walk through the valley. 

Friend, if you are in the valley today, don't despair. It is only for a time. It is only for a season in your life. Things may look dark now but I promise you that where the Lord is, He brings light. Never forget that. Dare to believe that what God has done before because He will most assuredly do them again.