I weave through a mantle of green rose bushes, wood nettle, and poison oak. It’s growing darker here in the valley behind our house. I’m sure the neighbor boys are still pumping their little legs and racing our children across the backyard in the evening sunlight, but it feels like night in the valley. The shadows prompt me to consider what trusting God in the valley really looks like.
Trusting God in the Valley
As the valley walls block out the sun’s last rays, I recall a valley we faced when winter’s arms still stretched white over these hills.
I rest on a fallen sycamore and watch trout jump as they eat the flies rising from black water.
Looking back, I remember hoping for a season of abundance and blessing but found mostly darkness.
I remember months of praying for a new direction and wondering where in the world God was leading. I also remember what he showed me in the valley. Here are a few of those lessons about trusting God in the valley:
Lessons From the Valley
1. You can trust God in the valley because some lessons must be learned in the darkness.
God transforms us in the dark places. Our hearts are shaped when it’s hard to see him.
We are refined in the dark.
Faith grows in the dark.
In the dark, the imprint of Christ’s light is forged upon our hearts.
We don’t know if our faith is strong enough to stand on until it is tested. We don’t know if our God is big enough to carry us through the valley until we can no longer walk on our own.
Trusting God in the valley means you allow him to let the darkness conform you to his image, even when it hurts. If your valley feels dark today, ask God to keep carrying you. Ask him to fill you with his hope. Meanwhile, trust that he is doing unseen work in your heart and life. He is molding you into the image of his Son.
2. Trusting God in the valley includes walking forward when you don’t understand what God is doing.
Has God led you to a valley in which you cannot understand what he is doing?
It’s not easy to keep moving forward when God doesn’t seem good and his ways don’t make sense.
Nevertheless, at times, we cannot know or understand God’s ways. We can only see part of the story.
Friend, your story is bigger than what you can see.
The key is to keep walking and keep obeying God, especially when you don’t understand the purpose. Today, I encourage you to keep putting one foot in front of the other as you walk through this difficult time.
We move forward by continuing to press on when the valley seems never-ending. It will end. Until then, keep your eyes on the Lord, and don’t stop moving.
3. God wants your valley to point to his goodness.
Do you want to learn how to point other people to Jesus?
Anyone can praise God’s goodness on the mountaintops of life. Learn to point to God’s goodness in your deepest suffering. You will point the world to unshakeable hope. Others will be drawn to Jesus when they see the hope he offers in your valley.
Keep a soft heart. God has not left you. Watch for his hand, and when you cannot see him, stand on his promises.
Trusting God in the valley includes keeping a soft heart, and always ready to testify to his goodness in your life – especially when life is hard.
4. The valley is often an answer to prayers.
Valleys aren’t comfortable. Our culture encourages us to arrange our lives around comfort. However, when we arrange our lives to pursue comfort, we often lose access to the precise instruments that will bring our prayers to fruition.
In the valley, we come to know Christ more deeply as we share in his sufferings, ache with broken hearts, and have nowhere to turn but his everlasting arms.
The refining fire of the valley is one of the purest places to experience answers to our prayers.
5. The valley teaches lessons about unshakeable joy.
James reminds us that we can count trials as pure joy because they bring us to maturity and completion (see James 1:2-4).
The truest kind of joy transforms us into the likeness of Christ, and this kind of transformation often requires a valley.
Trusting God in the valley takes faith, but as we cling to him, we trust that he is forming us into the people he wants us to become.
As for me, I walk through the valley until the sun sinks low. I thank God for the lessons I’ve learned in life’s darkest seasons, and I trust that the One who walks with me through every valley will never leave my side.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Stacey Pardoe
Featured Image by Max from Pixabay
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