Sep 11 2008
Charging into the Valley
For anyone who has been reading the articles I make available here it may seem as though I must really have it all together. “Oh, what a wonderfully obedient Christian he must be!” I want to make clear that though I may occasionally write things that hopefully put the meaning of the Bible, the teachings of Christ, in ways that seem relevant to you, the reader; I am nothing if not subject to my own failings. It is one thing to know the right things and yet another to do the right things as a matter of course.
Often, I find myself to be the wretched man that Paul describes in Romans 7. Verse 19 says, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing.” NIV. Over the past week or two, I have been at war. Not against the evil that I seem to keep on finding myself pursuing; no, against the good that I know I should be desperately chasing after. The very thing that I should be trying to attain, I find myself fighting against! We think of the trials in our life as, “valley,” experiences while we long for the next mountain top meeting with grace. But I have recognized, in me, conflicting desires that I have slowly been learning to manage; which I pray will benefit any of you who might find yourself in similar circumstances.
It is true that we all experience the highs and lows of this earthly existence and we can not expect that we should ever be allowed, in this life, to continuously dwell upon the mountain of God. Equally true is the realization that we can never hope to travel from one mountain-top experience to the next without dipping into the valleys that divide the separate peaks. But what are the feelings that we carry within ourselves as we cross those valleys? Fear? Regret? Shame? Abandonment? Loathing? We might think so, but we occasionally find a different driving force; anxiousness, glee, a wanting to be on the wrong side. We may put on, as a garment, the wrongly embellished mantle of justice and charge into the fray, knowing that it is not what Christ would have us do. At those moments, or during those seasons, we don’t care about the glorification of any deity as much as we care about the vindication of the things we hold to be right.
We may begin to feel as though we know that we’re right, (the Bible proves that well enough), and then we justify ourselves for feeling the righteous wrath that burns inside us. We may be angry with someone and instead of doing the right thing, (showing God’s grace through our forgiveness), we decide that we WANT to be angry! “I’m mad, I know I’m mad, I want to be even madder still!” We can hardly wait to reach as deep as we can into the depths of our venom and ride the ill wind as far and as fast as it will carry us. We know that it will subside soon enough but, for now, we seem to want nothing more than to revel in the spite and poison of a self-righteous loathing.
Instead of trying to move along the edge of the valley floor keeping to the foothills, hoping to avoid the frontal attack of the demons, I have found myself flying headlong into the thick of it; and eager to get to the middle of the worst. Even though I know that I am headed to a place that I don’t want to be, it’s as if I’m caught in a downward spiral; the closer I get to the blackest parts of my heart, the faster I rally onward. I am not talking about finding yourself in trouble and then trying to work your way back out; no, this is seeing what’s coming from a distance. It is knowing that you can still choose to escape, and willingly plunging into the depths of the worst of who you know you can be.
OK, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.” Romans 7:18. My complaint used to be that though I know that the ways that I have always handled things may be wrong, I don’t have the directions to show me the right ways. It does absolutely no good to be told, “You shouldn’t do this or that.” I KNOW THAT! I need to know what to exchange that bad behavior for. Don’t teach me what not to do, teach me instead, what TO do! I thank God, (never often enough), for a Godly wife. She can sit and talk with me until the spirit puts the right words in her mouth and the lights come on for me. Not that I like hearing those words when I’m in a sour mood, but I know that she is right.
She had been studying in the book of Philippians and she reminded me of the verses found in chapter 4:8-9, “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me - put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” These are words that we should all know well, but at a time when we are being consumed by ourselves, we may tend to not think as we know that we should. To me, this was the answer that I had been refusing to allow to enter my own hardened heart. Just like removing air from an empty vessel, (as I had just written about in, New Wine and Old Wineskins), it was simply a matter of filling myself up with something other than the anger and self-righteous, “self.” I had already purged the things that shouldn’t have been there, I had the Bible on my side to justify my ire, but I had neglected to fill up with that which I needed most, the Word that gives life! As a result, the demon returned and brought with him seven others and my ending state was truly worse than the first.
This is no great hidden secret that was revealed to me, one that had remained a mystery until that very moment; it was simply blocked from view long enough to allow me to fall on my face. You see, I can study an oak, an ash, a sycamore, a hickory… and reach the point where I know all there is to know about each one, and in my own wealth of self-righteous information, still be so blind that I sometimes can not see the forest for the trees. I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’ statement in, The Screwtape Letters, where Uncle Screwtape is explaining to Wormwood, “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.” Simply stated, if we can be kept from seeing the right answer, though it may be squarely in front of us, then any wrong answer will serve nicely to destroy us.
So then, what is the take-away? First, we need to realize that none of us are as we seem. I disclosed this particular failing so that there can be no doubt that I am as human as the next person. I am fatally flawed by the sin nature that I would gladly cut out,, if only I could. Next, there are situations that all of us face that tempt us to lose control and act in ways that we know better than to allow ourselves to gratify. Lastly, God’s Word has the answers we need to overcome the world if we will only spend the time to search for wisdom within it’s covers. It has been said, “There is nothing that God gives that is not needed nor anything needed which God will withhold.” This is God’s Word we‘re talking about. It has been given because it is needed. All of it. Everyday. For all of us.
There are also a couple of lessons here as well. The easy road is nearly always the wrong way to go. It is far easier to run down a hill than it is to run up the same hill. There is also a greater risk of finding yourself falling flat on your face if you are running down a hill than there is if you are going up. When you are charging into the valley you will not only be on the wrong path, but the longer you keep at it, the faster you go, and the greater the risk of injury to you and all those around you.
We must all cross the valleys of our lives but climb carefully down from the mountain and step tenderly into those valleys. There may be more than a little reason to the adage that warns, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” We must learn, day by day, that Jesus never promised us a life of ease and that while we must endure hardships, He will go through them with us. I still need a bit of work on learning to not run too far ahead of the Saviour. There will never come a day, in this life when we can ever say that we are finished and perfected in our walk with Christ but we must press on, all the same.
Not left to lag behind my Lord, nor free to fly ahead,
But walking safely at His side through the valley of the dead;
Through earthly trials I pass with resolved determination
I’ll cling to Christ, the Son of God the only sure salvation
Whether stumble, fall, or quickly run,
I give my all unto the Son.
All for the Glory of Christ