Picnicking in the valley

If it already hasn't happened to you, sooner or later it will. At some point you will wake up and look around and realize that you are in the valley. For each of us as we journey through life there are times when we walk on the mountaintop. Those are the times when we feel like we are on top of the world where everything is going right for us. It is that place where every traffic light turns green as we approach, we always get a parking space right by the door, if it can go right it does go right. Then it happens, the lights are always red, the bills are piling up, the pressure is on and we realize that we are no longer on the mountaintop but we are in the valley.

Everyone has valley experiences at some point in their life. Everyone. There are some valleys that we find ourselves in that are not of our making. Being fired from our job puts us in a valley that we did not choose. There are those valleys that we find ourselves in because of something stupid we did. Overstretching our finances to get the bigger house that we never could really afford, making a bad business decision and watching it go south, saying something that is out of place and hurtful to other people. We look around and instead of being able to see above the clouds all we can see is the rain that is dropping from the clouds - we are in the valley.

When we find ourselves in the valley we have a couple of choices that we can make. We can sit down where we are and think about days gone by when we used to be able to see all that there was to see, we can take out a shovel and dig a little more so our valley becomes even bigger than it already is or we can follow Elijah's example. We can go back from where we came from.

In 1 Kings 18 and 19 we read the story of Elijah and his mountaintop experience (literally) with the prophets of Baal. Here is the man of God in a one-on-850 prophet contest. The prophets of Baal do there thing and nothing happens - Elijah calls on the name of the Lord and fire falls from the sky, and then the rains come ending a 3 year drought. Talk about a mountaintop experience. I can imagine Elijah retelling that story a few times. In the following verses of chapter 19 we read that Jezebel, Ahab's wife, tells this mighty man of God that she is going to kill him. So, fueled by the recent memory of this tremendous spiritual high, Elijah does what many of us do in times like that - he ran for his life. He didn't just run away and hide - he ran over 200 miles away to hide. He was so deep in the valley that he asked God if he could just die. This was a deep, deep valley.

You need to read the story for yourself, but after a number of interactions with God, God asks Elijah this question, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" This is not a philosophical question as to the meaning of life - God is asking Elijah why he is in this valley under a broom tree asking to die. How could this mighty man of God go from being in control of commanding fire from heaven and drought-ending rain and yet be asking to die? How did he go from the mountaintop to the valley?

"What are you doing here, Elijah?"

Are you in a valley at the minute? Are things in your life not going to the plan you had made? Are you struggling financially? Are you having difficulties in your marriage? Are your children driving you insane? Have you walked, no, have you run away from God and the things He has for you? Maybe today God is standing where you are and asking you the same question - "What are you doing here?"

The next interaction is incredible - God puts on a display of his strength and power for Elijah and reveals Himself not in the wind, not in the earthquake, but in the silence of a whisper. One more time God asks Elijah the same question - "What are you doing here?" God has demonstrated His power on the mountaintop with the prophets of Baal, He has reminded Elijah through a quick demonstration with some wind and an earthquake. God is screaming at Elijah - DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW POWERFUL I AM? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?

He doesn't literally scream it out - He brings his work in a whisper. God speaks to him in verse 15 and says this - "Go back the way you came...."

God tells Elijah to go back to where he was. Go back to doing the things that you were doing before you ended up in the valley. Go back and do the things that I HAVE CALLED YOU TO DO. God tells Elijah to go anoint a successor to King Ahab, and a successor to that King and a successor to himself. Elijah realizes that God not only has a plan but he has a successor to carry on his ministry, and a successor to the king - which means that the king's days must be numbered and Elijah will be safe. God has a plan - God had a plan the whole time, but Elijah couldn't see it because he was in the valley focused on his problems and not doing what God had called him to do.

Is this where you are? Are you in a valley because you have stopped doing the things God has called you to do? Are you in the valley because you stopped reading your bible and praying? Are you in a financial valley because you stopped giving God what was rightfully His off the top of your income and have subsequently lost the blessing He prescribes when we do that? Are you in a valley of your own making because things got hard and you bailed on your Christian walk and relationship and now don't know what to do about it?

"What are you doing here?"

Have you been sitting in the valley having a picnic and looking at the view? God's word to you is "Go back the way you came". Return to the things that God asked you to do. Return to putting Him first in your life, in your finances, in your thoughts. It is time to get up off the valley floor and do what God has called you to do.

remember this one thing - a valley sits between two mountains. If you were on a mountaintop and find yourself in a valley then keep on going because there is a new mountaintop to be reached right beside that valley you are in.

So are you going to sit where you are or are you going to stand up, remember the things that God has done in you and through you, and go back the way you came?

Its your call.