A thought by
Larry Osborne, (2009-04-04) from his book, Ten Dumb Things Smart Christians Believe (p. 143). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle
Edition. . (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book
The myth
that Larry is dealing with in this section is the belief of some good people “that
God only leads us to the mountaintop and that long-term valleys always mean a
wrong turn.” He goes on to say, “The
problem with assuming that every deep and extended valley must mean a wrong
turn is that it ignores so much biblical evidence to the contrary. Sometimes a
valley does mean a wrong turn, but just as often (if not more often) it means
something altogether different.”
He then says,
“Some valleys are God sent me here
valleys. Their distinguishing trait is obedience that appears to have
backfired. Whenever doing the right thing is what puts us into a valley or
keeps us there, it's a good bet that we're right where God wants us to be, even
though we'd almost always rather be somewhere else.”
Maybe that
is where you are today. Larry says, “There
is one thing we can know for sure when obeying God puts us in deep weeds: we're
right where he wants us to be, even if we aren't where we want to be. That may
not make the valley any less scary or wearisome, but it does provide a source
of spiritual comfort and perspective.”
Now he does say, “Let's
admit it: it's pretty hard to imagine any scenario in which an all-knowing and
all-loving God would want us to endure a lengthy season of frustration and
disappointment. That's why, when we find ourselves (or those we love) mired in
an extended painful valley, we tend to immediately start looking for the
quickest way out. We assume something must have gone terribly wrong.”
But that is
not necessarily so. If you knew at one
point that this is what God wanted you to do, then don’t run, stay with it. Now there are other types of valleys but the
God sent me here valley is one you must not run from.
So how are
you doing?
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