Series: Mythbusters
“A Valley Means a Wrong Turn”
Selected Passages
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We’re winding down our message series called Mythbusters. We only have today and next Sunday left in this series. We are focusing in on spiritual myths. These myths are based on false understandings of scripture and they always lead you down the wrong path. Today’s myth is: “A Valley Means a Wrong Turn.”
Life will not always be great. It’s inevitable. No matter how well your life is going, you will, sooner or later, go through what can be called a “valley experience.” A “valley experience” is in contrast to a “mountaintop experience.”
The valley represents all kinds of low places in life. It might be the loss of a job, problems in a relationship, struggles in personal matters, financial difficulties, or any number of various and sundry hardships and misfortunes.
A good working definition of a valley for our time together this morning would be: “prolonged moments of pain and suffering that we seek to escape.” Most people would rather be climbing the mountain than trudging through the valley. This morning, we’re going to look at a spiritual myth that says that a long-term valley could never be a part of God’s long-term plan.
When faced with a valley that lingers for some time, especially one with no apparent end in sight, people tend to assume that they have taken a wrong turn. They assume that God’s leading always takes us to the mountaintop. A valley means you find a way out, no matter what it takes to do so.
That’s the false assumption. That’s a misinterpretation of scripture. That’s the spiritual myth. A valley means a wrong turn and a wrong turn means you find a way out.
Now, obviously, some valleys are the result of a wrong turn. Both the Old and the New Testaments warn about the consequences that come from our sinful and foolish decisions. Solomon tells us in Prov. 19:3 – A person’s own folly leads to their ruin, yet their heart rages against the LORD.
The idea that every long-term valley is a mistake and should automatically be wiggled out of is a fallacy. It simply ignores the long history of God’s dealing with his people and the clear teaching of Scripture.
Those who buy into this myth face several serious problems. The first problem is that important spiritual lessons are ignored. You don’t learn the really valuable lessons on the mountai top. You learn them in the valley.
The second problem is that the development of godly character is stunted. Hard times stimulate the growth of godly character. Refusing to walk through the valley keeps us from growing the way that we should.
The third problem is that self-centered decisions are made in the name of getting out of the pain as quickly as possible. Everyone has their valleys. If I just focus on mine, every decision I make point the attention on me. Phil. 2:3-4 – Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
The result of living by this spiritual myth is that we miss an opportunity to see God’s power in action. If we run from every messy situation on the assumption that God can’t be in it, we’ll never experience the miraculous power of his deliverance. After all, a miracle needs a mess. It always has and always will. It’s part of the process. Tough trials and “Help me, Jesus!” experiences aren’t always a lot of fun but without them there’s not much need for God to show up.
This spiritual myth not only hurts us, it hurts others. If we assume that long-term pain and hardship are totally unacceptable and automatically outside of God’s will, then whatever harm or heartbreak we may cause others in our haste to get out becomes mere collateral damage – an unfortunate but unavoidable part of our quest for happiness.
Many of us theoretically know that God uses hardships to train and equip us – to build character and to sometimes carry out His will. But something fundamentally changes when the deep and lengthy valley is our valley. The truths we so easily accept in theory and so quickly apply to others become difficult to fathom in our own life.
Let’s be honest with each other. It is hard to imagine any scenario in which an all-knowing and all-loving God would want us to endure a lengthy time of frustration and disappointment. That’s why, when we find ourselves mired in an extended painful valley, we tend to immediately start looking for the quickest way out. We assume something must have gone terribly wrong.
I wish I could say it’s a trap into which I’ve never fallen but I have. The myth that a valley must mean a wrong turn tends to gain credibility the longer or deeper our own personal valley gets.
So, if a valley doesn’t necessarily mean a wrong turn, then what does it mean? The answer is: it all depends. Valleys come in all shapes and sizes. Some have an obvious end in sight. Others look like they’ll last forever. Some are self-induced. Others are merely the result of living in a fallen world. Some are obviously God’s will and others are just nearly impossible to figure out until we reach our eternal home.
No matter what kind of valley we face, there are certain things we need to know in order to think clearly and respond properly. There are three simple questions that are incredibly helpful in navigating life’s valleys in a way that honors God, doesn’t short-circuit spiritual growth, and still allows us to get out of the valley as soon as it’s appropriate.
Why Am I Here?
The first question is: why am I here? I have to first determine why I am in the valley. The problem with assuming that every deep and extended valley must mean a wrong turn is that it ignores so much biblical evidence to the contrary. Sometimes a valley does mean a wrong turn, but just as often it means something altogether different.
Some valleys are God sent me here valleys. The distinguishing trait with these valleys is obedience that appears to have backfired. Whenever doing the right thing is what puts us into a valley or keeps us there, it’s a good bet that we’re right where God wants us to be, even though we’d almost always rather be somewhere else.
Jesus went through a number of “God sent me here” valleys. The first one came immediately after his baptism. The Holy Spirit led Him out into the wilderness. At a point of great physical weakness, the devil showed up ready for battle but it was all part of the Father’s plan. No one had taken a wrong turn except the devil..
A little later, Jesus ran his disciples through a similar drill. One day he told them to get into a boat and head to the other side of the lake. About halfway across, they encountered a sudden, life-threatening storm. They panicked. He slept – at least until they woke him up. Then he ordered the storm to be quiet.
These trials and valleys share one thing in common. They were the direct result of doing exactly what God said to do. They were “God sent me here” valleys.
One good thing about being in a “God sent me here valley” is that we’re right where he wants us to be – even if we aren’t where we want to be. It may not make the valley any less scary or worrisome, but it does provide a source of spiritual comfort and perspective.
The second kind of valley is the I messed up valley. It’s the one valley that does mean I took a wrong turn somewhere along the line. It’s the high price of living life as if it were a self-guided tour.
In the Old Testament, we see the nation of Israel go through cycles of subjugation to pagan nations: the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Assyrians, the Babylonians. Unlike their period of slavery in Egypt, these times of foreign domination were never an original part of God’s plan. They were self-induced hardships, the direct result of ignoring and disobeying God’s law.
One good thing about being in an” I messed up valley” is that it’s almost always easy to find the connection between the wrong turn and the valley. When we make a willful decision (or even a series of decisions) to stray from the prescribed path, we know it. Even if we make the wrong turn in ignorance, God will eventually make it known to us. He’s not trying to stump us or mess with us. He wants us to know where we went wrong because it’s the only way we’ll ever get back on track.
There’s another kind of valley. It’s the who knows why valley. It has no apparent connection to a step of obedience or even a step of disobedience. It’s just there. Sometimes it can be figured out when viewed through the rearview mirror, but just as often it never makes any sense at all.
There’s an incident that occurred in the early days of Israel’s occupation of the Promised. Land. It seems kind of strange. Judges 1:19 tells us – The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots.
Do what?!? The Lord was with the men of Judah but they couldn’t drive out a bunch of guys who had superior equipment? What’s up with that? David defeated a giant with superior armor and weapons with a sling and a stone because God was with him. What happened here? We’re not told. All we’re told is that the bad guys had iron chariots. Clearly, this was a “who knows why?” valley.
How Should I Respond?
Once we know what kind of valley we’re in (even if it’s a valley that makes no sense), we need to answer the second question: How should I respond? It’s a question we have to wait to answer until we know what kind of valley we’re in because different kinds of valleys call for different kinds of responses. Once we have a clear idea what kind of valley we’re in, it makes it easier to figure out what to do next.
A “God sent me here” valley always call for hanging tough; to stay put. Wiggling out or running away is never a good option. That’s the lesson Jonah learned the hard way when he tried to avoid a dreaded assignment. That’s the lesson Abraham learned when he made the choice to be deceitful about his relationship to Sarah to save his own neck. When he claimed that Sarah was his sister and not his wife, all he did was disgrace himself and set in motion a pattern of deception that would eventually affect his family when both his son and his grandson tried using deceit to get out of their own sticky situations.
But then there’s Daniel. He’s a great example of hanging tough and doing the right thing no matter what. All he had to do to avoid the prospect of being eaten alive by lions was to stop publicly praying to God for thirty days. Not forever. Just thirty days. But he refused to be disobedient. He knew that a path called disobedience was far worse than a valley called death. So he kept praying and ended up in a lion’s den.
Let’s suppose that Daniel’s approach to the situation was a bit different. Let’s say that he believed that a loving and good God would never send him into a terrible valley or ask him to die as a martyr. Let’s say he assumed that a valley like that surely meant a wrong turn.
Daniel would have probably responded differently than he did.
He might have fled the country. He might have taken a brief spiritual time-out. Or he simply could have just prayed in private. That was a compromise he could have easily justified in his own eyes because of all the good he would be able to do in his new role as the nation’s chief administrator. After all, he certainly wouldn’t be much good to God or his people stuck in the digestive tract of a lion. But thankfully, Daniel didn’t see escape from the valley as the important thing.
Even if obeying God’s clear leading is what puts us in a bind or keeps us in a bind, continuing to obey is still the only thing to do, even if it seems to make things worse. We should never judge the appropriateness of obedience by the short-term or even lifelong results. We have to judge it by eternity. Had Daniel been eaten by the lions, he still would have made the right move but admittedly, we might not be telling his story to the kids in Sunday school.
God sent me here valleys call for staying put but “I messed up” valleys call for a serious change in direction. This is the valley that is caused by a wrong turn. And if a wrong turn got us there, we have to retrace our steps to get back to where we need to be.
Sometimes, the consequences of a wrong turn can last a lifetime. I’ve known people to make horrendous decisions and land in prison for years and years. They might come to understand how they got into the valley, turn their lives over to Christ, and begin to make some serious changes but they’re still in prison. The sentence is still valid.
Thankfully, most “I messed up” valleys don’t last a lifetime but they’re almost always impossible to get out of until we do two things: 1. Take personal responsibility and 2. Make some serious changes.
It’s quite obviously foolish to blame God if we find ourselves in a mess that’s directly related to ignoring Him. Taking responsibility is only the first step. We also have to turn around and start heading in a different direction.
In Judges 10, we see the Israelites in an “I messed up” valley. They had turned their backs on God and started worshipping the false gods of the surrounding nations. God did exactly what he told them he would do. Israel had been under the thumb of the Ammonites for 18 years. Israel came to her senses and began to cry out to God.
Listen to what God told them. Judges 10:11-14 – The LORD replied, “When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands? But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you. Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”
That’s not the answer we expected, is it? It certainly wasn’t the response that the Israelites expected. God said, “I’m tired of you doing the same wrong things over and over.” Finally, they got rid of their foreign gods. Only then did God decide to heed their call for help.
I’ve seen lots of people who were sorry for the mess they created. They certainly wanted things to be different but the problem was that they were not willing to change the behaviors that got them into trouble in the first place.
The silly thing is that for many of them, the longer they stayed in their self-created valley, the angrier at God they became. They never realized that “I messed up” valleys never get better as long as we blame someone else (be it God or others) for our situation.
Another thing about “I messed up” valleys is that they don’t go away the moment we start heading in the right direction. Sometimes it takes a long time to get out of them – sometimes longer than it took to get into them.
It’s a lot like running a long distance race and taking a fall. Once you get back up, it takes some time to catch up. In fact, you have to run harder and faster than everyone else just to get there. After a while, that can start to feel unfair but that’s how it works. There’s no way around it – which is why it’s a good idea to try not to fall in the first place.
If it’s a “who knows why” valley, the appropriate response is walking by faith. Faith is based on trust – trust that God is good and he will never leave us or forsake us. Whatever the valley is, he will be there. Ps. 23:4 – Even though I walk through the darkest valley [the valley of the shadow of death], I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Here is one important observation. No matter what kind of valley we’re in, there is one thing we can count on: the enemy is sure to offer us a shortcut out.
It’s what the devil did when he tempted Jesus. He offered shortcuts out of the valley. Ultimately, he was trying to keep Jesus from the cross. Disobedience to the Father in the early part of Jesus’ ministry would have ruined his opportunity to be our perfect, unblemished sacrifice.
The devil gives us shortcuts out of the valley as well. He does it when he says that a lie is the only way out of a dicey predicament or when moral purity looks likes the death blow to a longed-for relationship.
In each case we already know what we should do. The problem occurs when the right path looks like it’s taking us to the wrong place – or at least to a place where we don’t want to go. That’s why the enemy’s detour starts to look awfully inviting.
The fact is that there are always two ways out of every trial: the enemy’s shortcut, which always involves compromise or disobedience, and the way of escape that God promises to all who walk with Him. The enemy’s shortcuts usually work well in the short run but they never work well in eternity. The Lord’s way of escape (a pathway called faith and obedience) sometimes works well in the short run but it always shines bright in the light of eternity.
What Can I Learn?
The first question is: Why am I here? The second question is: How should I respond? So, after we’ve determined what kind of valley we’re in and know how to respond, we have to ask ourselves, “What can I learn while in this valley?” There are always lessons to be learned and character to be built no matter what the cause or what the valley.
A valley of injustice helps us identify with the sufferings of our Lord. A valley of pain prepares us to empathize with and support others who face the same valley. A valley of suffering teaches obedience and trust. Even a valley of self-induced hardship can serve as a warning to never go there again.
James 1:2-5 – Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
Notice that James never addressed the question of whether their persecution was the result of God’s doing, the enemy’s doing, or just part of life in a fallen world. Instead, he focused in on things they could benefit from the most.
There are three important lessons for any journey through a valley. The first lesson is rejoice anyway. James writes to spiritual refugees – persecuted people. He knew that their trials had the potential to teach them lessons they could never learn otherwise.
The second lesson is persevere. Rom. 12:12 – Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
The third lesson is: ask for wisdom. We ask for wisdom in order to discern how we should respond and what we should learn. If we would seek insight into what we can learn while in the valley as opposed to constantly looking for a way out of the valley, the life lessons will open up on a steady basis. Your greatest learning experiences can come during a season of life when you think nothing good is happening.
I’m not saying that every valley is a good thing. I’m not trying to pin every tragedy on God. I’m certainly not saying that valleys are enjoyable. What I am saying is that as long as we have to go through it, we might as well get something out of it.
Heb. 5:7-9 – During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.
If Jesus learned obedience through the things that he suffered, we shouldn’t be surprised if we’re asked to take the same course. If God asked his only begotten Son to go through the valley of the cross, we shouldn’t be too surprised when he asks us as his adopted sons and daughters to go through a few valleys of our own.
Close
Let’s go back to a passage we read only part of earlier. Ps. 23:1-6 – The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
It doesn’t matter if you’re on the mountaintop or in the valley. What matters is that the Lord is your Shepherd.
(This series freely adapted from Larry Osborne’s book:
Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe)
