Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, August 19th. Life can sometimes feel like trudging through a dark canyon. Today, we continue the Life Principles series to help us learn how to survive and thrive in the valley. God has given us something to remind us in a very few verses how awesome His love is for us. His desire to protect us and watch over us and care for us. So, I want you to turn to the twenty-third psalm. And let's read this psalm. And what I want us to look at primarily is verse number four while we talk about all of it. It's this fourth verse I want us to look at because I want to talk about the believer's valley experience.
The times you and I go through those valleys in our life. And so, he begins, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. And this is where I always want to go back to the King James Version. Because somehow when you say, I fear no evil for you with me, there's something about saying, I fear no evil for Valor with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil.
My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So, what is the believer's valley experience? It is an experience that all of us experience many times in our life. And remember this, you can't have mountains without valleys. So, if you have mountains, you've got valleys. And if there is a valley experience, there is a mountain peak experience. Most people don't know how to operate in the valley.
Or they don't understand why God allows valley experiences in our life. Remember this, He's not interested in ease, comfort, and pleasure. He can provide that. What He's interested in is relationship, intimacy. What will it take to get me into an intimate relationship with Him? What will it take to get my eyes open? What will it take for Him to change and remove my love of things to my relationship to Him?
What will it take? Whatever it takes, He's there and He isn't working our life for something good. So, our valleys are under the watchcare of the shepherd.
And because I know that's true, I can at least have some sense of confidence. He says, the Lord is my shepherd. Now, in the Hebrew world, when they talked about God, they thought of God as being their God, the nation of Israel. But David brought it down to where you and I live. The Lord is my shepherd. I know He's every believer's shepherd. But when I'm in the valley, I want to know He's my shepherd. He's my shepherd on the mountaintop. He's my shepherd in the valley. Listen, once you trust Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you always, you always have the Good Shepherd.
Because He doesn't change. And you see, here's what happens. When you trusted Christ as your Savior, He came, He says, I'm abiding in you. Living in you. You and I have the Good Shepherd living within us, guiding us, directing us, helping us, comforting us, strengthening us, protecting us. We have Him.
So, it doesn't make any difference whether I'm on the mountain peak or in the valley. The Good Shepherd is always the same and He's always there. You may not feel Him. You may not sense Him. You may not see Him. You're not aware of Him. He's there.
I'll tell you why. Because He can't leave you. He'd have to change His whole attitude and change what He said in order to leave you. You may be in the valley and feel very hopeless. There is hope because, listen, the Good Shepherd, who is the sovereign of this universe, is with you in the valley, ready to help you, willing to help you, has the power to help you, and is motivated by His unconditional love to help you right now no matter where you are. You simply need to turn to Him.
It just may be that God has allowed you, not sent you there, allowed you to get to this hopeless situation so that you will depend upon Him. You will turn to Him. And listen, He'll take you out of the valley and onto mountain peaks. One of these days you'll look back and think, oh, thank you God you didn't leave me there. And thank you God you didn't let me do what I wanted to do. Thank you, thank you, you'll never be able to thank Him enough. That's who He is.
He's this awesome Lord. Now, listen carefully. Why do we respond in such a negative way when we get in the valley?
I want to give you four reasons. Listen to them carefully. The first one is this, because we don't have a solid belief system. And I mean by that, what you believe about God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole spiritual world, what you believe about that, well, I believe a little bit of this, a little bit of that. If you don't understand who He is, when you get in the valley, you're going to panic. Or you're going to alcohol, sex, or drugs, or whatever it might be. You see, if you don't have a clear understanding of what you believe, you're already in trouble.
And you're going to make a mistake. That's one reason. A second reason is this, that we don't understand the ways of God. That is, God has certain ways He operates.
He operates by principle, and His principles are in the Word. You can't come up with any kind of valley experience for which there's not an answer in the Word of God. And so, if I don't have a clear understanding of what I believe about God and the Word of God and the Holy Spirit and Jesus and all the rest, if I'm not clear about that, then I'm not going to be clear about how God operates. In other words, for some people, for God to allow a person who is one of His followers to suffer for anything is totally unreasonable in their eyes. Then you must have sinned against God. You must not have faith.
Something must be wrong. All suffering is not the result of sin. But the way some people preach it is, if you're trusting God and you believe in God and you're obeying God, you're not going to get sick and you're always going to have plenty. You don't find it in the Word of God.
It's not there. Because all you have to do is look at the Scripture how God, just take the Apostle Paul, for example. Look at all the pain and the suffering. In other words, God saved him on the Damascus Road, called him to propagate the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul wasn't living in sin when he was in one jail after the other. He wasn't living in sin when they tried to stone him to death in the streets of Lystra. He wasn't living in sin where everywhere he went they were trying to kill him and trying to assassinate him.
He was walking through one valley after the other. But listen, thank God for every valley the Apostle Paul walked through because I get blessed every time I turn to the epistles where he was suffering and hurting and going through all kind of difficulty for you and me, and he didn't even know it. So, when we think about the absence of a clear understanding of Scripture, don't understand the ways of God, and that, number three, our faith is based on emotion. Well, I can trust Him as long as everything's going my way.
No, no, no, no, no. It is my faith must be based on the Word of God, not on my emotions. What does the Bible say? What is the clear teaching of Scripture?
And then, of course, another reason is this. We don't know His promises. Look at the promises in the Word of God.
We don't know His promises. And so, when I get in the valley, if I don't understand who He is and if I don't understand His ways, I'm going by my emotions rather than the truth, then I'm going to be in trouble. And so, people get in the valley and instead of growing in the valley and learning in the valley, they find themselves hopeless, helpless, growing bitter and growing further and further away from God.
Now, the third thing I want to say here is simply this. These valley experiences are the most profitable times of learning for the child of God. What is it we learn? We said we learn far more in the valley than we do on the mountaintop.
Because think about this. What have you learned when everything was going your way? You had plenty. You had a fine home. You had a fine automobile. Your kids were this, that and the other. You had plenty of money. Everything's happy.
You had a house here and you, everything was going your way. How much did you learn spiritually? You said, well, I learned how good God is. Is that right?
I don't think so. I think you took it for granted probably most of the time. But when did you learn a lesson that you said, yes, I can trust Him through these things? It's in the valleys that we learn the most. So, you say learn the most about what?
So, let's start with Him. We learn the most about God in the valley. Where I learn the most about God is not on the mountain peak, but in the valley.
Because here's what happens. In the valley, God is doing something. And one of the things He's doing is He wants us to get a clearer picture of Him. If my mind and my life is so full of things and people and this and that and all that's going on, He can get lost in all that. In the valley when I'm hurting, when there's pain and when I'm lonely, here's what happens.
When I feel loneliness, what am I going to do? I'm going to turn to Him. When what I had's gone, I'm going to turn to Him.
And when my friends have left me, I'm going to turn to Him. And when I'm sick and the doctor can't help me, I'm going to turn to Him. You see, I learn a lot about God. I learn about His presence in my pain. I learn about His love in my loss. I learn about His patience with me when I've complained.
I learn about His gentleness when I'm giving Him a difficult time. I learn a lot about God when I'm in the valley. Because you see, when I'm in the valley, I can't control it.
We learn the most about God in the valley. Because listen, I remember exactly where I was. I was in my study when they stretched that on the floor where I lived at that time. And I was thinking about my mother. She was in a nursing home at that time and she was dying. I knew that any day she'd die. I remember lying there thinking, God, how do I handle this? What's going on? Why would you let my mother on Easter Sunday fall down the steps when she was going to go to church?
I don't get it. Why did you let my mother fall down the steps? Then why did you let her have one little stroke after the other? Why would you allow her to go to the hospital and me go see her until I'll see her the next morning? The next morning I go to see her and she can't speak. And never spoke another word till she died.
What is this all about? And I remember exactly what God said to me. The purifying work of pain. God was saying something to me. That while my mother, who was unconscious and was not hurting at that point, but I was.
And what He was doing was not for my mother. She wasn't even in the valley, she was unconscious. But I was in the valley and He was purifying something within me. The purifying work of pain.
I learned something about the valley. It can be painful, totally beyond anything we can do. But if He's doing something good within us, it's worth a trip. But I have to be willing to respond right and recognize that He has a purpose for it all.
It's maybe something's not bad, but He wants it to be better. And remember this, that whatever valley you're in, God's up to something. And that's why it's so important that you and I profit from it. Now, if I complain and moan and groan and argue with God, curse God, blame Him, then I can walk through the valley and end up bitter, resentful, hostile, angry, and having lost a wonderful opportunity in life.
Because I remember when I, I knew that my mother was dying. It's amazing what didn't matter anymore. And more than likely, if you're in a valley today, you could look around and say, you know what?
There's some things in my life that don't matter anymore. But you see, if I'm willing to respond in the right way, something awesome can happen. So you say, well, what's the right way? I want to give you four suggestions and if you'll just jot them down, this is the right way to respond. And remember, He's leading us from one mountain peak into the valley to another mountain peak.
That is, God wants to grow us through the last day of our life. So, what is my right response? Right response? Number one, surrender your life to God. Lord, I've held back on these things. I've given You this and I've given You that, but Lord, today I'm making a full surrender. The only thing that matters is that God, You have Your way in my life. When You do that, You're going to turn that valley experience into an awesome stepping stone to a mountaintop.
That's the first thing. The second thing is this, and that is to believe that this valley experience, God is going to use it for something good. No matter what it is and how painful or what you may have lost, listen to what He says. My God causes all things to work together for good.
Mountain peaks and valleys, hardship and pain, suffering and joy, He causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose, to those who respond correctly and acknowledge. Listen, at no time does the Good Shepherd have anything in mind for you but the best. And He can give you a vision for what He can do in your life. He can open your eyes to see opportunities for you that you've never seen before.
You're living down here all closed in. He wants you up here where you can see the possibilities for your life from His perspective. You see, if you and I could see what He sees, we'd say, God, send me to the valley. Send me to the valley.
If I can see what you see, if I can experience those things in life, if you can use me in that fashion, if you can work in my life in that way, send me to the valley. I must surrender my life to Him. I must believe that He's working something good in my life. And the third thing is this, I must rest in His wisdom, His love, and His power.
God, I'm laying it all before You. I'm laying my life before You, and I'm going to trust You for Your love and Your wisdom and Your power to see me through this to accomplish Your purpose, no matter what that is. And then the fourth thing is simply this, I've got to thank Him for it. I have to be willing to thank Him. Father, thank You for bringing me through this valley.
Now, sometimes I'd like to be real personal, and sometimes I hesitate a little bit. But I can just tell you this. The worst valley I've ever walked through, I've walked through in a long time. I wouldn't wish that valley on anybody, but I can tell you this, nor would I take anything for the lessons that I have learned and am still learning. I wouldn't take anything for the way God has worked in me personally, what He's cleansed me of and the joy He's given to my heart, that I would never have believed in the midst of the valley when it was the most painful.
I would never be able to see. And when I see how God works in our life, and what He's willing and able to do, I realize that valleys make us more useful for God. Then we have to ask the question, God, who's running this life anyway? If He's running it, He's guiding you. He is the Good Shepherd. When He allows a valley into our life, it's because in His love and His wisdom and His power, He knows it's the best way for Him to accomplish His purpose. Thank you for listening to part two of The Valley Experiences in Our Life. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia. .
