Hills and Valleys
Life is full of ups and downs, highs and lows, joy and sorrow. We all will fight battles. Some of them we will win, some of them we will lose. In both seasons, how are you responding? Are you turning to Jesus? Are you still giving him the praise? Are you still giving him the glory he deserves and seeking him above all else? The hills and valleys we walk through can oftentimes make life feel very inconsistent. But the good news? God ALWAYS remains the same. He is the same God in the greatest moments of your life as he is in the hardest moments of your life. He is the God of your successes and the God of your sufferings. No matter where you are in life, he sees you. He is a God of love and a God of faithfulness, and he never leaves you.
The “mountain tops.” When everything in your life seems to be going GREAT. When you make that good grade, you get that trophy, you find your person, you’re laughing with your friends. The moments when we have essentially nothing to complain about. The question I have for you is this: in those “highest of high” moments, how do you respond? I can bet that for a lot of us, it’s easy to forget about God when things are going well for us. Maybe some of us neglect spending time with God in these seasons because our lives are “so great” in the moment and we don’t really need anything to change because we’re happy with where we’re at. Or maybe we take complete credit for the mountain tops and the successes we’ve had in our life. Like we got ourselves to this place with no one else’s help. So, I have a challenge for all of us when we’re on the mountain tops. Choose humility. Recognize that you didn’t get to this place on your own. You didn’t give yourself the blessings and gifts that helped get you to where you are today. You can’t take the credit. Also, recognize that no matter how well things are going in your life, you still need Jesus. You will never reach a point where you don’t. So, choose a posture of humility. When you’re at the highest of highs, don’t forget who led you there and don’t lose sight of the one that deserves all the glory. Bow low and humble yourself before him.
On the flip side, what about when something goes wrong? When you lose a loved one, you experience a heartbreak, or you don’t get the job that you’ve been praying for months for. What happens then? Suffering is real. We all have experienced it before, and we all will experience it again. It’s part of living in this broken, sinful world. But through our suffering, we find Jesus. When we are at, what seems like, the end of the road and we have nowhere else to go. When we can’t take another bit of bad news or don’t have the strength to keep moving forward, we must seek Jesus. 1 Peter 5:10 says. “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” I think we can all agree that it would be nice if we could be called to eternal glory in Christ without the suffering part. But let us all be reminded that God uses our suffering to strengthen us, establish us and, ultimately, for us to know him better. Now, I don’t know about you, but I will gladly endure suffering if it means Christ and his eternal glory are waiting for me on the other side. 2 Corinthians 4:17, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
I have been through the highest of highs and lowest of lows and with full confidence I can tell you that through both, I have experienced the Lord’s presence and seen that he stays the same through it all. One of my favorite songs is “Highlands (Song of Ascent)” by Hillsong United. In that song, they capture the truth of who Jesus is so perfectly with the lyrics,
“I will praise on the mountain,
And I will praise you when the mountain is in my way.
You're the summit where my feet are
So I will praise You in the valleys all the same.
No less God within the shadows,
No less faithful when the night leads me astray,
'Cause You're the heaven where my heart is
In the highlands and the heartache all the same”
Everything we have is from him. So, everything we do should be for him. Give him the praise! Because he’s the one that led you to the mountain top and he’s the one that will be with you in the valley.
Challenges:
Choose Humility. The posture of humility is something that we must choose ourselves. It’s not natural and it’s not always easy. But when you humble yourself before the Lord, you are choosing him over yourself. You are laying down your life to follow him.
Give God the Glory. You didn’t get to where you’re at today by yourself. The things you have accomplished were not done by you alone and they also were not an accident. God is with you every step of the way, and there is purpose in your life and where you’re going.
Prayer. Just talk to God. When you’re on the mountain top, pray for humility. When you’re in the valley, pray for strength. No matter where you are in life, pray that you would seek him first. Spend time with your Heavenly Father because he cares about you and he loves you so much.
Prayer:
Lord, thank you so much for this wonderful day! Thank you that you are living and active in our everyday lives. You never leave nor forsake us, but rather you walk with us through it all. I pray for every person reading this right now. I pray that whether they are on a hill or in a valley, Lord, they would praise you. They would seek first the Kingdom of God and they would be humbled that you choose them every day. No matter what stage of life we are in or what we are going through, I pray that we would wake up every day and choose you also. I pray blessing and favor over each and every person reading this. We love you and we praise you. In Jesus’ name! Amen!