The mountain and the valley

Well, we have returned from the verdant, cool mountains and are back in the "valley" of heat and noise and busyness. How can I fall so precipitously from the mountaintop of peace and gratitude and quiet joy to that pressured feeling of simmering frustration with my children, my too-long to do list, my messy home (welcome to summer), my many failings as a mother, wife, and homemaker and on and on. I'm reminded of that beautiful Puritan prayer, "The Valley of Vision." The prayer begins, "Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights; hemmed in my mountains of sin I behold Thy glory." The author asks for God to "Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up, that to be low is to be high, that the broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit... that the valley is the place of vision."

Why is that? The view is so much lovelier from the mountaintop! The air so much clearer, the stars so much brighter, the breeze so much cooler. How I love it on the mountaintop.

But the valley is the place of vision, for the valley is where we live and learn what it is to persevere in spite of our feelings, our obstacles, our challenges. If we can learn to sing in the valley when busyness or exhaustion or discouragement or hopelessness seems to hem us in on every side, then we find that song so much sweeter, so much richer and deeper, and ultimately, so much more glorifying to our Savior.

He, too, experienced the mountaintop on the Mount of Transfiguration. And good ole' Peter wanted to build a little shelter so they could hang out there on that lovely mountain and just bask in the glorious glow. Can you blame him?! But the Lord Jesus came not for the glorious mountaintop but for the salvation of the lowly, harsh, preoccupied, busy, ungrateful, frustrated, worried, overwhelmed men and women trudging along in the valley.

Aren't you thankful that He was willing to come to the valley? Aren't you grateful that He is in the valley still, walking beside you, ready to carry and encourage and strengthen you when the road just seems too hard and too long? Aren't you overjoyed that He is using whatever you are going through for your greater good and His greater glory, for there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that is beyond His sovereign control? As the Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper, declared "There is not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry out, 'Mine!'"

So, as I look at my messy home, I cry out "His!" As I try to encourage (rather than fuss at) my children, I cry out, about each one, with his or her strengths and weaknesses, "His!" As I deal with all the challenges of life, as I pray for dear friends with hard circumstances, as I walk in this valley, I cry out "His, His, His!" And if it is all His, then somehow, someway He will redeem and renew and restore in spite of all our weaknesses and failures.

Many years ago, a few years before his death, my daddy quoted Justice Helms who declared "I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as it is what direction we are going. To reach the port of heaven, we must all sail sometimes with the wind, sometimes against it--but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor."

O Lord, help us to sail and not drift! Help us to keep pushing along in the valley when our feelings tell us to quit or let up or give in, for You are there with us, guiding and teaching and helping us all the way. To You be the glory!